


Disco Zero

by candyriot, coolant, yurisaurus



Series: so much that passed us by is forever gone [2]
Category: Disco Elysium (Video Game)
Genre: Blood and Violence, M/M, Substance Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:55:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 102,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24845665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candyriot/pseuds/candyriot, https://archiveofourown.org/users/coolant/pseuds/coolant, https://archiveofourown.org/users/yurisaurus/pseuds/yurisaurus
Summary: In the aftermath of Martinaise, Kim grapples with the incursion of Harry into his life and his own shifting assumptions about reality while Harry struggles with the fallout of addiction.Wild Pines ceded administration of the Greater Revachol Industrial Harbor to the Débardeurs' Union, but Titus is left to make sense of what's left in the aftermath of the bloodshed between the Hardie boys and Krenel.As Revachol continues its cold, wet spring, the countdown to an unknown inflection point has already begun.
Relationships: Harry Du Bois/Kim Kitsuragi, Titus Hardie/Kim Kitsuragi
Series: so much that passed us by is forever gone [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1797331
Comments: 67
Kudos: 82





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [candyriot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/candyriot/pseuds/candyriot) ([twitter](https://twitter.com/candyriot_)): main text  
> [yurisaurus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yurisaurus/pseuds/yurisaurus) ([twitter](https://twitter.com/yurizilla)): plot, dialogue, editing  
> [coolant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coolant/pseuds/coolant) ([twitter](https://twitter.com/coolant6969)): plot, art
> 
> Prefaced by [le sang de ceux qui ont péri](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24311029).

**Wednesday, 24 March ‘51**

The whine and roar of the 130 kilowatt seven-liter V12 engine fills the cabin of Kim Kitsuragi’s Coupris Kineema as it speeds down the 8/81 from the Industrial Harbor toward Precinct 41. The dilapidated old workers’ barracks and alleys of Eminent Domain lie beneath the elevated motorway. There, people scraping by in a permanent state of crippling poverty are starting another miserable day under the cold spring rain.

If Kim’s meeting with Captain Ptolemy Pryce goes as planned, those few thousand souls along with the rest of the eighty thousand residents of Jamrock will be within his jurisdiction as a lieutenant with the 41st. He’ll be part of an understaffed, underfunded RCM station taxed with preventing crime in a gang-overrun district without a municipal government.

The week he spent working alongside Harry Du Bois, no matter how thrilling or mind expanding, doesn’t by itself justify applying for a transfer. Neither does the fame of Precinct 41’s top brass. And if he sometimes feels slighted and underappreciated in Precinct 57, in part a consequence of being promoted to lieutenant fresh off a decade and a half on the juvenile beat, there is no telling what the culture at Precinct 41 will be like.

After spending days in contemplation, he chose to apply for the transfer as a vacholiere to help relieve a stressed precinct and serve the people of Revachol on Jamrock’s crowded and filthy streets instead of protecting miles of asphalt and heavy machinery.

He loves the Greater Revachol Industrial Harbor in its own way. Airships landing and lifting off against the backdrop of the Bay of Revachol. The shouts of harbor workers carried with the salt on the wind. Mountainous container yards. Wide open spaces for driving his motor carriage at top speeds.

In short, the harbor satisfies his love for mazut and six-rotor airships but fails to provide a genuine sense of public service.

There’s heavy fuel oil in the air along with the rich scent of custom leather within the cabin as he operates the electromagnetic steering levers. He weaves through the morning traffic with effortless skill, the road noise invisible between the pervasive noise of the engine and the speed metal blaring from the radio in competition with it.

The Kineema is a fantastically impractical machine, designed for the racing circuits and only modestly scaled down for the open road. This one may be painted in police livery, but it has a seedier origin. Only two years ago it had been the property of a Mazdan — a besmertie, a gangster, in the service of Jamrock crimelord the Mazda. He died in a firefight.

Kim remembers tracing his fingers along the lines of the car in fascination, mind internally rattling off its specs. He was already dreaming of his hands on the controls, of the power of the engine, of a top speed of 180 kilometers an hour.

A voice spoke his name, interrupting him. He turned and his partner, Dominique “Eyes” Lachapelle, dropped the keys into his hand, smiling knowingly and saying _Get it back to the station in one piece._

The spoils of war.

He isn’t proud that Dom killed the vehicle’s former owner. He would have preferred an impounded vehicle after clean arrest. However, he can’t regret the necessity of defending their own lives.

Three months ago Dom died choking on his own blood while Kim uselessly applied pressure to the lung-perforating gunshot wound to his chest.

Kim doesn’t have a death wish, quite the opposite, yet he expects he’ll meet the same fate, eventually. The odds will be even higher in Jamrock. But he’ll die owning a very fast car.

\----

“...due to Officer Du Bois' demotion and the need to solidify confidence in the administration of C-Wing, with your consent your transfer will be expedited. I have utmost faith in Vicquemare’s competency, but he’s young. Having a veteran lieutenant of your reputation will help secure talent.”

Captain Pryce looks up from Kim’s file and across his desk at Kim in query, his bespectacled face lit by the light from the kind of green desk lamp ubiquitous across RCM precincts.

“Of course. I’m prepared to assist Lieutenant Vicquemare in rebuilding C-Wing as soon as I have the authorization to begin reviewing personnel files,” Kim says.

He keeps his tone carefully moderated despite the thrill buzzing underneath. Pryce has shown nothing but the highest respect for him. As difficult as it still is to believe a reputation precedes him beyond the unfortunate pinball case, it seems the esteemed captain has otherwise garnered a positive impression.

“Good.” The bald headed man doesn’t mince words. “You’ll be hearing from us soon. It’s been a pleasure.”

The bald headed man rises and steps around his desk to offer his hand to Kim, who’s stood as well. He cuts a formidable figure in his tailored grey suit, his shoulders still square and muscled despite the advance of age.

It’s not difficult to imagine him living the stories of his past exploits.

“All mine, I assure you,” Kim says, firming his handshake to match Pryce’s.

With the door to the man’s office closed behind him, Kim’s breath picks up and a rare sense of jubilation takes him. He feels new faith in his own competency, a fresh drive to meet the challenges he’ll be dealt.

\----

There remains a second order of business.

Kim hasn’t called Harry since they last spoke in Martinaise. Not because he hasn’t wanted to call, but because Harry has no phone. He asserted Harry could call him if he needed anything. They went through too much together for him to imagine not being there for him in the coming weeks, even though he had just been floated the possibility of a transfer and was far from making a decision.

Titus had been right. The intensity of the experience made certain Kim would ‘stick around’. After seeing the phasmid rising huge and infinitely delicate above them, after watching Harry stand with it in silent communion, on top of all the other uncanny moments that had shifted his perspective on reality, it was impossible to simply walk away. That they also faced a trial of life and death together only strengthened that commitment.

Some of what Kim experienced still unnerves him, a silent uneasiness trapped underneath his skin. Living a two millimeter hole in reality trying to swallow their world is radically different from the abstract idea of the pale he’s kept at a distance from his everyday world throughout his life. However, he’s willing to endure that uneasiness. Harry built a rapport with Kim in an easy way Kim never experienced before, even though Harry put them in many tenuous, even dangerous situations.

He knows the man needs to rebuild an equilibrium with his former life and that his presence might interfere with that, but this is an unobtrusive time to inquire as to Harry’s well being.

After asking around for either of the only two officers he knows, he’s directed to the desk of Judit Minot, who looks up to greet him with one of her soft smiles, setting down her pen.

“Did you have a good meeting, lieutenant?”

“Everything is moving forward favorably.”

“You’re checking on Harry, non?”

He wishes he could assert otherwise and that smalltalk between them is immediately important to two people who could have a working relationship in the near future. He appreciates her permission to forgo that.

“He hasn’t called.”

Minot softens further still.

“Mm. I’ve stopped by to make sure…” She seems to think better of what she was about to say, changing tack. “Someone had to monitor the alcohol withdrawal. I volunteered”

Kim’s eyes widen as realizations begin slotting into place in his mind.

“The alcohol withdrawal?”

Minot nods affirmation, regret at being the bearer of bad news worrying her brow.

“He spent over a week intoxicated. You’re lucky he kept drinking. Stopping suddenly after drinking that much, in his condition, there’s a risk of seizures. Much worse than seizures, too.” Kim’s expression must be concerning, she segues: “But... I don’t want to scare you. He called us when he started experiencing symptoms and Gottlieb, our lazareth, asked me to bring him lorazepam. The dangerous period is already over.

“You should go see him. He’d like that. I haven’t spent time with him, I just brought him groceries, helped him change his bandages and made sure he wasn’t... dead.”

Kim can see how difficult a nine days it’s been for her, showing up wherever it is that Harry lives not knowing if she’d find the man himself or his corpse.

It was none of his responsibility and natural that no one informed him, yet he strongly would have preferred to know.

That, however, is already in the past. In the present is Minot.

“I’m not entirely ignorant about alcohol poisoning, or long term abuse,” he says. “I simply didn’t recognize the possibility of withdrawal.”

If he allows himself to sound slightly apologetic, it’s in solidarity with her efforts.

Her smile returns.

“That’s not your fault. Most people don’t go through it.” She stops to open a desk drawer, rifling through what must be a purse until she meets with a jangle of metal. She produces a ring and a key, glancing from his gloved hand back to him. “Here. You can give him his spare key back.”

He holds out his hand to accept the key, grateful that not equivocating over the idea of visiting Harry was enough to motivate her to smooth things over.

From the sympathy she obviously shows, she isn’t pawning off responsibility. It would be awkward for him to show up to Harry’s uninvited with no excuse.

“Thank you, Officer Minot.”

\----

The sound of the Coupris Kineema’s engine‘s coils shutting down reminds Kim that like some beautiful young date he’s supposed to have it home by evening. He has no natural inclination to park it on Perdition Avenue deep in Jamrock’s ghettos.

He pushes away thoughts of hooliganism in a police-unfriendly neighborhood, climbing out of the cab to gaze up at an apartment building so dilapidated it looks soggy on the outside, faded yellow concrete encroached upon by mold.

There had been security on the front door some time in the past, but someone forced their way in, since. He hesitantly trusts the old elevators, only because he sees someone exiting them upon his approach. He punches the button to the fourth floor while hoping he hasn’t made a mistake.

The elevator, its insides marked with graffito, screeches and groans on the long haul up but it delivers him safely into a narrow hallway.

The key in his pocket, he raps on Harry’s door. He encourages himself to start with the assumption his friend is _not_ dead, however unnerving his conversation with Minot.

He can hear Harry moving in the apartment through the insubstantial door, the sound of bare feet on creaking floorboards.

Kim breaks into a smile at Harry’s look of surprise upon opening the door. Harry looks better than Kim last saw him, still unwashed and unkempt but not covered in blood. The smell of alcohol sours the tobacco heavy air, but it’s a stale smell from behind him instead of the familiar scent of him sweating the stuff.

He’s in an old white tank top and the FALN track pants Cuno swindled him into, his chest hair as profuse as ever and his broad shoulders bare. His shoulder may still be bandaged, but by now there’s no blood on the gauze. Kim thinks disapprovingly that its dingy appearance suggests it hasn’t been changed in at least a day.

“Was expecting Judit,” Harry apologizes, glancing over his shoulder at the apartment behind him and then, shrugging to himself, opening the door to Kim, anyway. “This place hasn’t recovered from the bender. I don’t know if she told you...”

Kim moves cautiously into the recess of misery Harry may or may not think of as home.

“You weren’t on your feet. I know. I would have come sooner if I had known.”

It could be worse. The trash in the trash bags against the wall could still be on the floor with the other trash still on the floor, mostly paper waste with the odd brown beer bottle left sad and empty.

A single brown leather couch furnishes the small living room, once plush but now worn and sagging. There’s an end table beside it with a couple empty water glasses and a banged up card table in front of it, rust on the legs and the plastic top peeling.

A book sits face down on it, held open to its page by its own weight. It has companions on two levels of boards nailed to the wall.

No reel to reel player for playing telematic milieus in the room, only the boombox they bought from Bird’s Nest Roy in Martinaise sitting diagonally on the card table along with Harry’s ashtray. There’s also a framed RCM patrol officer’s uniform hung in what might pass for a place of pride if it wasn’t covered in dust.

In other words, the apartment of an addict. If anything of value once existed here, it’s long ago been pawned for drugs and alcohol.

To dwell any longer would mean giving in to the depression and futility cloying in the mildewed atmosphere. There’s something worse, here, too. Something foul.

Kim digs into his jacket pocket.

“Khm. Minot asked me to give you her key. How are you feeling?”

Harry grins as he takes the key in his beefy palm.

“Like I’ve been shot twice and spent a whole week in a cold sweat puking my guts out. Better than usual.”

Kim places the smell he couldn’t place, now. Vomit.

Harry offers the couch and, as much of a disaster area as he’s in, Kim sits. As bad as Harry allowed things to get, Kim understands what led up to this and also that seeing it half picked up is an encouraging sign.

“You applied for the transfer. Judit told me,” Harry says, looking ebullient as he sinks onto the couch besides Kim.

The smile brings back Kim’s own, which had lapsed in the onslaught of sensory impressions. Even now he’s letting go of the fact the white walls are tinged black with mold.

“I just came from my interview with Captain Pryce. He’s chosen to approve it.”

The sense of exhilaration Kim felt stepping outside Precinct 41 only to turn and look up at the domed building behind him where he might soon spend his days returns and their present surroundings feel less bleak.

Fresh events have been set in motion for both of them. And if times remain difficult and there are phantoms of unrest on the streets, change never guarantees progress, only change.

He slaps Harry’s upraised hand. The tips of his ears warm. He may be forty-three, but having the esteem of a man as legendary as Ptolemy Pryce has him as relaxed and jubilant as a wide eyed recruit. It’s all he can do not to let more excitement shine through.

“Hey, you deserve it. I got the feeling you weren’t getting much recognition up at the harbor.”

“To be fair to our brothers and sisters at the 57th, recognition for what? We mostly guard freight. There are murders and gang killings, just not nearly as many as in Jamrock. I keep my wing running, but sometimes the biggest obstacle is reminding my officers to stay serious enough to survive the bad days.”

Harry side-eyes him, looking him up and down, too brief a pause for one of his mysterious internal ruminations but long enough of one that he’s obviously taken away a conclusion.

“I’m gonna trust my gut. You’re not the most reliable source of news on you. You noticed that?” He doesn’t let Kim protest, just continues speaking: “Hey, you want some water? Or, Judit bought some apple juice. I know, boring options.”

Kim raises his brow.

“Boring options are the only ones I want available.” He weighs accepting a glass of water against the age of the apartment’s pipes. “Apple juice. Thank you.”

He understands the importance of establishing a sense of normalcy in this place, even without it being put in order. If Harry intends to stay sober, the apartment has to contain memories of human activity, not just spectres of drug abuse and heavy alcohol consumption.

He watches Harry disappear into the apartment’s kitchen, a touch of warmth in his chest.

He reflects how much better Harry looks, now. Thoroughly untidy, but still considerably improved. He can hardly understand how the man he knew in Martinaise so powerfully captured his attention and then his loyalty.

Harry: Puking his guts out, beads of sweat rolling down his flushed skin, lakes of sweat beneath his armpits, hair stuck to his damp forehead, that hair unwashed, oily and flecked with ashes from the belching output of nearby coal plants, his eyes blown and bloodshot, jaw gurning, breathing heavy, reeking of alcohol and tobacco, body softly bloated from the constant dilation of his veins from the liquor. On that first day, wearing only one garish green snake skin shoe.

There was also the rigor mortis grin carved into his expression, a tendency to wring his greasy necktie in his hands, outbursts of rage at inanimate objects, the constant implications of suicidal ideation, and the otherworldly visions.

Kim felt mixed emotions over Harry, that first morning. Disturbance at Harry’s sheer disorientation. Amusement as the man cursed at and assaulted the trash bin he failed to open with the pry bar. Sympathy that he had thrown away his case ledger out of despair at being a cop another day. Resentment that the man pressured him into giving him one of his expensive ballpoint pens. An unbudging sense of duty forbidding him from allowing Harry to too detrimentally impact the case.

As he grew used to Harry’s spontaneity and more confident in the man’s deductions, both those produced from keen observation and those that appeared more extrasensory, he began to feel a bond of brotherhood with the man that transcended his obtrusive physicality. He reached a point where he’d become so accustomed to the familiar stench of him it hardly intruded on his senses. He not only trusted him but genuinely enjoyed his company.

He remembers him at the end: Pale and constantly leaking blood, moving stubbornly forward like some overheating engine leaking radiator fluid and oil. He’d never seen a being so determined.

Harry brings out two mismatched glasses of juice, both in big, cheap plastic cups. Kim takes his with a nod of gratitude and murmured _Thank you_. He leans forward to discern the title of the dense volume lying on the card table.

“Volume one of Drahoslava Sofiavich’s three volume work on the economics of revolutionary Graad and their continued socioeconomic impact across the isolas,” Harry says, taking a drink.

Kim sits back, sipping more modestly from his own cup, still sizing up the massive book.

“Khm. That is formidable reading.”

“One thousand four hundred pages. And the woman’s not afraid to be critical of Father Mazov. Mistakes were made.”

“To put it mildly,” Kim murmurs. He doesn’t have anything to say about the Antecentennial Revolution in Graad, but it reminds him of something else. “Not to broach too sensitive a subject, but have you located your mother? You seemed to be trying to remember her.”

A shadow passes across Harry’s expression. He sighs with a heave of his shoulders and takes another drink from his yellow plastic cup with its peeled and faded corporate logo before coming out with it.

“I called her. Looks like I fucked that relationship to hell, too. Think I blew her money. Gonna have to figure that out.”

A nod on Kim’s half. There’s no need to examine that too closely.

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

Harry gestures expansively toward the ruins of the apartment with his cup.

“Nothing about the asshole who used to live here can surprise me at this point.”

“Once you’ve cleaned out his apartment you can start making it yours,” Kim affirms, except he has to wonder if that’s the best approach to the past and softly lays the bait. “Although, perhaps…”

Another swallow and Harry’s finished his drink. He digs his cigarettes and lighter out of the pocket of his loose track pants and lights an Astra, taking a fortifying inhalation before taking the bait.

“Nothing’s coming back to me, Kim. I’m sober. I feel good — I mean, I feel like shit but I’m not fucked out of my mind.” His eyes lie on the cigarette dangling familiarly between two fingers. His brow furrows. “I know it’s only been, what, seventeen days since total oblivion? Just seems like something would have changed by now.”

He glances toward Kim, looking for insight, maybe, or perhaps further affirmation.

“I’m afraid it’s beyond either of our control,” Kim says. “You’re right. It’s better to focus on what’s ahead of you.”

Harry’s expression solidifies, dissolution giving way to the all-pistons-firing determination he seems to have an infinite reserve of beneath his more superficial and ephemeral moods.

“Just gotta mend up and then I can get back to the beat.”

His own apple juice finished, Kim sets his cup aside and scrutinizes Harry’s shoulder with its discolored dressing.

“Speaking of mending, when did you last change this bandage?”

“Uh, I guess Judit came by, khm, wasn’t yesterday,” Harry disassembles. Now he has the guilty expression of a dog who stole from the kitchen counter. “Sorry, Kim, I’ve been pretty out of it.”

Kim could live without Harry’s sorries, but especially when they’re at Harry’s own expense. He narrows his focus to the task at hand.

“Where are the medical supplies?”

“In the kitchen. The bathroom’s an extradimensional portal into the abyss.”

There’s no telling what that means, but it motivates Kim to consider holding his bladder, if it comes to that. He thinks to take their cups with him, although he leaves behind the glasses already sitting out.

The kitchen, at least, is of their present reality. There are even dishes drying on the dish rack sitting atop a towel beside the sink, although there are more dishes than that within it, and now two more cups, besides.

He sees the battered metal red cross marked kit sitting at the end of the counter against the wall and retrieves it, returning to the living room.

Harry has set his still-burning cigarette in the ashtray and is pulling forlornly at his tank top with pain on his broad face. Kim sets the first aid kit on the card table and engages with helping him actually remove it at the expense of flexing what must be a stiff as well as ragged shoulder.

“If you can’t get out of your tank top, you shouldn’t wear one,” Kim says.

“I’ll take your advice,” Harry says through clenched teeth.

Kim takes special care unwinding the bandage from Harry’s left shoulder with Harry breathing heavy from the pain. He stops halfway to get him a glass of water to wash down another dose of drouamine.

Harry’s shoulder still looks like tenderized meat from the blast of Ruud’s nock cannon, even without all six bullets finding his flesh. He’s lucky not to have lost an arm. He still could lose the arm if an infection sets in.

Kim shivers with the memory of picking shrapnel out of shredded skin despite every effort to maintain an emotional distance. He takes the time to look carefully for any remaining metal, although he’s looked four, five times already in the two days he spent nursing him.

He’s reminded of the recent sight of the long-healed but mangled flesh of Titus Hardie’s leg. In all likelihood the whole mess of Harry’s shoulder will scar with the same kind of dense, smooth scars that will take patience and caution to stretch out after the passing of the wound contraction phase.

He thinks about Harry’s assessment of the bathroom and thinks again about the age of the pipes. Since the flesh is inflamed pink and red but only to an ordinary degree, he chooses to use only the first aid spray from the box on the table. He listens sympathetically to Harry’s hiss and then groan of pain, companionably soothing _You’ll be alright._

Re-wrapping the wound takes skill. Kim understands why Harry had trouble working up to changing the bandage, himself. Minot’s job was surely better than Harry’s would be, one-handed. Harry smokes the remainder of the cigarette with his right hand while he works.

He wonders what sort of care Harry has taken of his more accessible, and theoretically more easily mended, thigh wound. He supposes he won’t trust Harry’s assessment no matter what the man says.

“Now, your leg.”

Harry’s mouth tugs back into that ridiculous thirties grin.

“You want me to take my pants off?”

“I’m not taking them off for you,” he parries, but for Harry’s sake clarifies: “I’m not leaving you to forget about changing the bandage.”

The track pants slide off to fall around Harry’s ankles, revealing already-familiar skin downed with hair beginning high up the man’s thighs.

This bandage looks promisingly like it may have been changed yesterday.

Kim takes one knee beside him and unwraps it efficiently, spending a minute assessing the injury he himself stitched up after frightening minutes of wound compression that, in the moment, blurred with his inability to provide aid to Dom.

He had left himself exposed. If the Hardies hadn’t provided distraction, and if Harry hadn’t warned him of De Paule behind him after she emptied her gun into Angus, he would have died.

It wasn’t his proudest moment. But then, he’s an RCM officer. He isn’t a soldier. He can’t say he made the wrong decision. Harry might be dead if he acted otherwise. He can’t say he made the correct one. Angus, after all, died.

He already made his peace with the fact he acted to the best of his ability based on his present capacities and at least did not fail to act at all. And, encouragingly, Harry’s thigh wound is healing neatly.

“It looks like the stitches are ready to be removed,” Kim says, looking up to Harry for consent. Harry gives it with a nod. Kim could, of course, leave them for the lazareth, but it seems better not to let the skin grow too tight around them when Harry isn’t ready to return to the station.

Harry lights up another cigarette while Kim gets the scissors and tweezers.

The minor operation takes a short time on each side. Kim sprays the wound and begins re-bandaging it.

“How are you doing?”

Harry exhales a plume of smoke, giving that question more thought than Kim cares for.

“I’m just kind of realizing you saw me naked.”

He isn’t joking. If anything, behind his reflective tone he sounds vulnerable.

Kim thinks about his intimate, infinitely chaste relationship with Harry’s flaccid cock, and defuses the situation in his usual dry tones.

“I never saw you naked, detective, I was amazed when you held your bladder for two days.”

His friend’s eyes widen, the realization clearly taking him for the first time. Kim supposes it’s ordinarily better to go appreciated than not. That’s not the case here.

“Thanks for, uh... Thanks.”

“It’s better not to mention it. You would have done the same.”

It’s natural for Harry to wonder exactly what was done to his body in the absence of consciousness. Kim doesn’t see a story worth telling. He rests assured he was completely professional and provided the best care he was capable of.

He tucks away the medical supplies in their box and returns it to the kitchen.

He’s been at the apartment going on an hour, and he does have concerns for the Kineema outside. He also knows he hasn’t provided much more company than Minot.

He takes a seat on the couch, again, retrieving a cigarette of his own and breathing it to life from the flame of his lighter.

Even with Kim playing his offer of company as low key as he can play it, Harry lights up with visible delight.

“Tell me more about how the meeting with Captain Pryce went.”

They spend a while making small talk. Kim thinks it would be good to have something to _do_ in the future. He enjoyed playing Suzerainty. If they should have continued working at that time, the mind can only take so much death and stress.

It’s possible, though, that he should find them a shorter board game. He doesn’t have much money to spare, but Harry so clearly has even less.

Another hour, a little more, passes. It begins to grow dark in the world beyond the blinds. Kim finally excuses himself, wishing he had more to say — a greater facility for idle conversation.

“Thanks for stopping by,” Harry says at the door. “I haven’t found anybody besides you I haven’t fucked over.”

Kim offers him one of the small smiles that have become astonishingly familiar for only spending a week beside a man.

“You’re welcome to call me in the evenings, detective. Not _every_ evening. We’ll determine how often is appropriate as we go.”

Harry obviously has no phone, but there’s a payphone just on the corner. It doesn’t seem unfeasible.

What could have been Harry’s last words still linger with him.

 _No one wants to_ do _anything with me... no one wants to party with me._

By nature he’s a very private man, but he might be able to unbend for the sake of Harry’s continued health.

\----

Six days have passed since Titus put his friends beneath the damp graveyard dirt. He’d let other hands do the previous night’s digging, it just wasn’t in his nature to stand by and watch after the crowds started to disperse.

He’d paid his condolences to the families. Eugene and his girlfriend were keeping an eye on Dennis’ old mom for the day. But once the weeping mourners had cleared out the time came to move soil and that’s when he paid his own respects, putting his muscle behind a shovel along with other hard faced union men. It wasn’t like he owned a suit to ruin, he was already dressed for labor.

The praying and the stories didn’t much get through to him. When he spoke his piece, it had been for the benefit of people other than himself. Hearing the first wet clods of dirt hit the roof of Glen’s coffin, though — that was real.

The last feet of soil sent up a spray as the graves filled in. He went home muddy, the face in the mirror smeared with dirt from wiping the sweat from his eyes. The drain ran brown as he showered it all off, scrubbing grit from his arms up to his elbows.

He didn’t get to spend but a couple days mourning, and he’d already gotten back to work in the three day interim before the funeral.

He has a couple problems on his plate. The beginning of the solution to one of them are seated with him in the Union box right now, shooting the shit with him, Alain and Eugene. Their names are Kilian and Simon. He’s heard they’re passable marksmen, he still has to put them through their paces, but they’ve got the right attitude to lay out a few besmerties, or mercs if it comes to that. Not that you can know for sure until the fresh stiff’s cooling on the ground.

Kilian has a family. Titus doesn’t know if he wants to bring on a family man. Simon, though, he’s unattached. The night’s not looking like a wash.

He doesn’t see Ruby standing outside the box until Eugene gets real still. Her eyes aren’t on Eugene but on him. Her new hair job is hard to make out, but he guesses purple after accounting for the low burning red fluorescence of the mood lighting and the slowly spinning lights gliding over walls of exposed brick, moody gold.

“Alain, Eugene, if you can entertain our friends. Sorry, boys, looks like I’ve got an appointment,” Titus says, grinning friendly at their new friends.

He snags the last four cans of a six pack off the table, big fingers hooking in the six pack rings. This isn’t a conversation for inside the Whirling, but it’s one that demands beer. The new girl, Ginette, chatting to customers as she mixes drinks at the bar knows to keep the union box stocked up on booze.

Ruby doesn’t need telling to head back outside, Titus following on her heels. They head across the courtyard to loiter against the wall of the opposite building, treading over the enormous red graffito painted over the stone where their friends bled and died.

He can see she’s carrying. He doesn’t know where she got the gun. Maybe she always had one hidden somewhere. What he does know is she didn’t kill the merc with it. He decides not to bring it up.

He pops a beer from the plastic netting and tosses it to Ruby. She cracks it and takes a drink while he frees and opens his own. They’re silent a minute, imbibing. He takes that minute to get a read on Ruby’s expression, dark and cagey, standoffish, even a little hostile.

He can’t blame her.

“Where you been?”

“Hiding out,” she says. “You sort of stabbed me in the back.”

“Guess I did,” he says, a beer in one hand and the other two held dangling at his side or he’d be rubbing his chin. Instead he just keeps his lean lax, the brick cold against his shoulder. “You were right about that cop. Except that he’s crooked.”

Ruby looks down at the beer in her hand. She looks young. She _is_ young. He figures about ten years younger than him.

“That’s why I’m back. I thought, fuck. After he let me go, maybe the rest of it’s not as bad as I thought. Like maybe I don’t have to bail.”

He doesn’t say anything, he’s just there for her when she raises her eyes: accepting. Maybe she deserves an apology, maybe not. He put the cops on her trail, but she didn’t exactly make a case for her innocence when she cut and ran.

He figures he’ll let it sit until he gets his head around it.

He glances out across the courtyard. Right now, he can still see the bodies lying dead and dying. A heavy feeling comes over him. His shoulders slump.

Maybe it’s more that he’s lacking the initiative for that apology. It’s been tough keeping his mood up for the fresh recruits.

“Look, I don’t know if you heard...”

There’s apprehension in Ruby, now, when he looks back her way.

“I’ve steered clear of anybody else since the cops flushed me out,” she says.

A lump sticks in his throat.

“Glen, Angie, Theo, Dennis — that merc’s buddies took them all out.”

She lowers her beer as her apprehension morphs into horror.

“God, Hardie. I’m... God. Are you okay?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

He’s lost men before. Never four at once, and through it all he’d had Glen.

Maybe it’s tougher this time, and still he knows wallowing in it won’t bring them back.

Ruby studies him a while before her expression takes another turn. She’ll have some mourning to do, but she battles it off. She looks no less troubled, though, except the troubled turns inward.

“Hey. Is Klaasje...”

Titus’ muscles tense at the name. His hand tightens on the beer can with a crush of metal.

He doesn’t know what he’d do if he saw her again. Not after her lies killed four Hardies because of the protection he extended her.

“Bitch blew town right before it all went down. She played all of us.”

“She framed me for murder.”

There’s a hard edge to Ruby’s voice, an echo of his own resentment.

He finishes his beer and further distorts the metal in his hand under the satisfying power of his own fist, listening to the aluminum buckle and crumple.

“However bad you think _she_ is? She’s probably worse.”

A sad smile takes up on Ruby’s face, her eyes too tired for her comparative youth.

“I really liked her there for awhile. I thought we were close. ”

Titus pitches his smashed beer can toward the trash can, missing in the dark. It clatters to the ground among the other tare. Someone will be picking it up tomorrow to turn it in at Frittte. In Martinaise, littering is a community service.

It seems like an opening to try and mend some fences. He focuses on the important person here, the one he needs to hang on to.

“About that. I didn’t realize how _much_ you liked her. I’ve been clued in.”

The slightest widening of those tired eyes as they pick up a spark of life. The corners of that smile turn up with unconcealed hope.

“And you’re okay with that?”

Titus _pshaws_ the implications away.

“Always been okay with that. Known about Glen half our lives.”

Now Ruby’s grinning. He likes to see her like that, with the shadow that dogs her cast off.

“I can’t believe we slept with her.”

His own tension begins to uncoil at the friendly ribbing.

“Me either.”

It puts both of them back on track. Titus pops the top on his second beer, handing Ruby the fourth still dangling from its plastic web for when she’s ready for it. She finishes off the one in her hand, in response, taking a second to chuck it toward the can and cursing when she misses, too.

The woman who turns back to him is the one he remembers. The organized woman who acts with a purpose. Mentally acute.

“What about Eugene and Alain, are you three still together?”

He knows what she’s asking.

He swears to himself this time it’ll be different for her. Maybe the deaths are leaving him feeling his age, but Theo was never a bastard to him when he’d been new talent. Keeping her on the margins because she’s good at her shit was an idiot move.

“I’m rebuilding the operation,” he replies to the question unspoken. “I could use a radio operator if you’re still in the business.”

“I’m your woman,” she says. “Maybe have my back this time?”

“I can’t unfuck what I did, but from now on? We’re in this together. Glen was right about you. I should’ve trusted his instincts.”

Ruby’s fond, now. Nostalgic. Despite all the pain, he feels it too.

“People like me and Glen, we tend to watch out for each other.”

It sounds like she didn’t know about him and Glen, then. And that’s fine. That was private.

He takes a swig from his beer. Squares his shoulders while still leaning against the wall.

Seems like the time to get some very public business out of the way.

“You’re not gonna believe this.”

“Believe what?”

“I slept with a guy.”

Ruby scoffs.

“You’re right,” she says. “I don’t believe it.”

He delivers the coup de grace with flourish:

“ _And_ he’s a cop.”

He watches Ruby crunching the numbers behind her eyes, her brow riddled up in confusion.

“The— No, wait. The scrawny guy? You slept with _him_?”

The way her eyes bug, he’s almost offended.

“First? I’m not looking for your opinions on men. As far as I know, you don’t have any.”

Her friendly laughter chases the specter of offense away.

“I’m just saying he’s bantamweight and you’ve got like a fifty kilos on him. You’re telling me this because...?”

He flashes a grin.

“Everybody else knows. My head wasn’t on right after Glen.”

Ruby shakes her head, smacking her lips after a cool drink.

“A cop, though? You shit must have seriously gone sideways.”

He casts his gaze out across the square again to the place where the two RCM officers interrupted what would have been a massacre to make their stand. When he saw those three gunners suited up with their repeaters and an Ister AR-FA7 anti-vehicle nock cannon he’d known they were fucked, drunk as the opposition was.

“He came through. They both did. The two of them put themselves between us and those mercs, and they’re the ones who killed them. It was gonna be all of us — Lizzy, too.”

Ruby follows his gaze, this time. He sees her realize he wasn’t just looking into the distance before and that this is where it went down. Sees her swallow.

There’s emotion in her voice as she searches for a neutral topic.

“What happened to my lorry?”

“Evrart learned the cops busted into it. It got ‘looted’ before the jam broke up. They salvaged the important parts, wrecked the rest. I’ll get you set back up. Whatever you need.”

“I’ll make it work," she says. She may not like it, but the ability to adapt is one of her strong suits. She hesitates a moment before going fishing: “Hey, I’ve got some sensitive equipment we need to bring in from the Pox asap. I had to drag it out there before the cops could send in cleanup to confiscate it. Believe me, it cannot be replaced.”

The pale-whatever, if he has to guess. It doesn’t matter what it is.

He straightens up off the wall, chugging the rest of the beer. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Okay. Let’s do it.”

“Right now?”

“Right now. I owe you.”

“Alright,” Ruby says, energized. “Let’s go get an MC.”

\----

With the harbor shut down for the night, there’s no requisitioning a lorry.

Titus shows up at Tibbs’ at eleven at night with a six pack from Frittte and a smile. His brother looks at the six pack and at him with that expression people get that says you’ve had them suffering their whole life, but he hands over the keys to his motor carriage after Titus promises not to take it on the motorway. Short trip to the Pox and back. Not even taking it off road. I swear.

The three of them offload some pane glass from the back seat and Titus and Ruby get rolling.

“Did he used to prize fight, too?” Ruby asks, kicked back and nursing a beer in the back seat as they head for the bridge through the dark. “He looks like it.”

Titus is in the front seat at the steering levers, his own beer in the drink holder.

“Nah. He’d go a couple rounds with me but he never turned pro. He can shoot and he can land a punch, but Tibbs is a hardcore nerd.”

“I’m guessing nobody made fun of him for it in school.”

“Reads Paradox B and can put your lights out with a choke hold. That’s Tibbs. Trustworthy guy. I’d like him in the outfit, but he’s still holding out on me.” He sucks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, a regretful _tsk_. “Miss the days when he used to have my back.”

He chugs his beer on the straightaway out of Martinaise, asphalt disappearing beneath the MC’s big mud tires.

“What’s stopping him from joining up?” Ruby asks.

“It was one thing a decade back when we were still on the defense. After we turned it around on ‘em, he didn’t have it in him to cross off a bucket list of stiffs. I don’t blame him. Nobody _wants_ this job. Glen, maybe.”

They lapse into silence. Ruby’s grief is brand new and having a couple more beers in him than before let it slip his mind, even while he otherwise feels lucid, like there’s more to notice in the headlights — like the beer tunes all the noise out.

Ruby knew Glen, her good buddy. A guy always glad to see her around, ready for beer and conversation despite his hostility toward the whole rest of the world. The way he took to her probably should have clued Titus in, but it hadn’t.

Ruby never knew Glen talking about the different things the right caliber bullets do to a body, cracking skulls with his knuckle dusters, double tapping a target, or heaving corpses into the canal to wash up somewhere else. She’s been with them a matter of months, not through the hard times.

She has to understand in the abstract what it took to eliminate the besmerties and the Barmy Army from Martinaise. She worked for La Puta Madre. She just didn’t see it first hand, her friend Glen standing stone faced and flinty eyed over a guy whose guts he just turned to splatter paint, spitting tobacco juice onto the pavement beside him.

Titus wouldn’t want to see that for the first time, again. But if it put a fear in him, sometimes, to be closer to that sadist than anybody else in his life, it steadied him, too. He learned how to do the job from Glen. Drop them, move the body, and move on.

He’d still _prefer_ to talk his way out of a situation, but Glen made the inevitable nice and simple, cut and dry.

Tibbs has all the tools to enforce the Hardies’ brand of law in Martinaise except the killer instinct Titus adopted second hand from his best friend.

He steers the MC into the civilized half of the Pox, down some nameless street lined with cinder block houses with peeling tin roofs.

Ruby leans over the back of the driver’s seat and starts giving directions, her breath foul except for the beer — but what do you care about toothpaste when you’ve been flushed out from your foxhole? It’s not her normal, and he’s too drunk to really care.

They pull up in front of a building too wrecked to live in even when you already live in the Pox, holes rusting through the roof and boards hammered over the windows. It sits a distance from the surrounding homes. It’d be swallowed up by the night if not for the illumination of the headlights.

“This is the one,” Ruby says.

Titus swigs some beer, opens the door, and hauls his big body out of the cab. Ruby climbs out after him, tossing her empty can to the side in the weedy grass.

It takes no effort at all for Titus to wrench the wooden planks off the door and discard them on the stoop. Enough were already removed that somebody smaller, somebody like Ruby, could get through the lower half. He can’t, though, so the rest have to go.

She hid the device in a hole in the rotten floorboards, something half seen in the artificial light pouring through the gaping doorway and through the dust motes drifting through the air. He couldn’t get under there if he tried and he doesn’t want to step near the edge, either, at his weight. She has to pass it to him. He hefts it easily, but it must have been hell on her to carry it this far even with the muscle she’s packing. He’s guessing it weighs a good twenty five kilos, and it’s unwieldy.

He gets the thing out to the MC, treating it gentle, and sets it in the back seat.

He’s used to all kinds of tech but he’s never seen anything exactly like it.

It’s got what looks like a rifle scope at one end, a ring in front of that, then a tube going into an obscure metal box. There’s a lot of things going on inside the tube. There’s something that looks like a speaker but not exactly like a speaker on the front of it. There’s levers and knobs and wires and an electronic display. It’s all bolted to a metal base with tripod legs folded up underneath it. Some of the metal’s painted pale yellow, and some isn’t. It basically looks useless. She could tell him it does just about anything and he’d buy it.

Their work done, they turn off the MC and crack open a couple more beers. They sit on the stoop of the house in the black of the night, a breeze in the air and the sound of night insects surrounding them. Titus hears more than sees Ruby kicking back, his eyes still adjusting to only the dim light of the crescent moon and the stars.

The Pox is the kind of poor where people are unlikely to investigate a break in like theirs. If people aren’t afraid to leave the engine running and the lights on bright, they’re armed, too. And they are.

“Bring me up to speed,” Ruby says.

Titus takes a breath, collecting his thoughts. He wishes the news was good. It’s not, but the solution to another of his problems is sitting beside him.

“We’ve gotta get back in business, fast, or we’re gonna have a lot of union families without food on the table.

“We’ve been jamming communications about the massacre, but I’m betting the besmerties already know we lost some of our top gunners and sooner or later they’ll show up hungry. Those guys’ll be real happy to hear it’s just me, Alain, and Eugene. Glen and Theo, I don’t even know how many of the bastards they put away.

“If I can trust you to head up operations? I’ll focus on rounding up boys for the ugly side of things.”

The whole plan for economic independence rides on mass transporting raw chemicals from factories in Samara to Revachol where they can be processed into narcotics, scaling up their distribution network to put the big players in Jamrock under pressure. They don’t only need Ruby back in a lorry, they need more drivers, too, and greater protection both in Martinaise and on the road.

They’d been ready to scale up, right on the verge, when, from the story as Titus heard it, a geriatric communist holdout assassinated the head merc from Krenel in a fit of insanity. It still sounds unbelievable every time Titus thinks it. Over a year’s worth of planning, finally recruiting a pro like Ruby out from under Madre’s nose, and some lunatic almost costs them the whole kettle. No independence from Wild Pines. No undercutting the competition. No incorporated Martinaise. Another decade of devastating poverty.

One thing’s for sure: Ruby _is_ a pro. Titus knows it’s time for a little humility.

“I said we’re in this together. You’re one of us this time. A Hardie. It’s what Glen wanted. It’s what Eugene wants. I was an asshole holding out on you.”

“You were, actually.”

He can’t see the smile that warms her words, but it soothes over the sting.

He plays it off friendly like.

“Old Titus is turning forty and he’s getting his _priorities_ in order.”

He raises his beer to her, a shadow on shadows. She sees it, though, and meets it with hers, a metallic sound of two cans meeting in the dark.

“For the most part? I think you’re headed in the right direction,” Ruby says.

He’s not going to mention the loco cop’s invitation to take him on as an RCM volunteer — not to anybody. He’s had time to give it the thought it deserves. There’s too many people who need him right here. Even if it means doubling down on trafficking speed and psychedelics and lining the Claires’ pockets before enriching the rest of Martinaise, it’s the only realistic shot at a future the town has.

The Moralintern has had decades to turn Jamrock around. There’s no sign of La Delta’s prosperity trickling down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I first completed Disco Elysium with a 3/3/3/3 build boosted by substance abuse, with my final stats a spread of 4's and 5's. My approach to Harry will reflect that playthrough, with all the voices contributing.
> 
> Dating is irregular in the game and begins from date of the case file: Monday, 8 March '51.
> 
> Canon is irregular, too. I'm siding with whatever best serves the plot.


	2. Chapter 2

**Tuesday, 30 March ‘51**

Kim digs for the keys in one deep pocket of his jodhpurs, his other hand weighed down with a heavy plastic bag of foam takeout containers. Harry, standing at his heel, had offered to carry them when Kim purchased them. Kim declined, only fractionally out of pride and mostly to let Harry smoke.

He turns the keys in the door and steps inside his apartment, holding it open long enough to let Harry take over from him and leaving his friend and co-worker to close and lock it. He goes to put the food on the table. 

Any other co-worker, and he would stand on ceremony. Paradoxically, he wouldn’t invite any other co-worker into his home. 

It’s all he can do right now not to show nerves about the idea of Harry with his tobacco stained fingers and whirlwind personality rifling through his private space.

"Thanks for having me over."

Turning to Harry, he shakes his head. It’s the least he can do.

"You can’t stay cooped up in that apartment. It’s a hazard area."

Although it had been cleared of debris the second time he visited, there’s still work to be done before the place resembles a liveable habitation or smells less repugnant. He still hasn’t braved the bathroom.

Harry stands bold in front of the door, arms folded across his chest, surveying the small living room with a faux judgemental mien and eyes alive with curiosity.

"So, this is where Kim lives."

Kim is certain he looks as pained as he feels.

"If you could try to contain yourself."

Harry’s mouth is familiarly stretched into that lopsided grin straight out of the ‘30s.

"No way. I am definitely not containing myself. I wanna see everything."

Kim’s brow furrows as he looks around his own home. There are the potted plants in the window, the bookshelf, containing books and a single model aircraft — God, he’s going to touch the model aircraft — the desk where he does his work, the armchair where Kim sometimes prefers to read and the tables, one in front of the couch and one alongside the wall beside the door.

"I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed. As you can tell, there isn’t much here to see."

"You’re underselling it."

There’s no point in arguing when he accepted Harry would want to investigate him before he chose to invite him over.

"I’m going to eat."

"Just be a minute."

Kim watches Harry begin doing the Jamrock Shuffle through his apartment as he takes his seat on the couch and opens the foam lid over his croquettes.

Harry turns to his left and looks at the table. He immediately opens the drawer. Kim winces, although there’s just odds and ends in it, emergency candles and a spare key, a few extra lighters, some superglue.

He moves on to investigate the plants — _This is a cast-iron-plant, right?_ — touching their leaves for no discernible reason. Petting them, maybe.

He stands gauging the desk, second hand and slightly worn just like everything else, but it appears work-related materials hold no interest to him.

He glances at the bookshelf, clearly making a note to come back to it, something Kim is not looking forward to, and meanders into the small kitchen. 

He opens some cabinets. Some drawers. Wound tight, Kim urges himself to relax and ignore it. He knew this would happen, didn’t he?

Kim raises his voice only slightly over the short distance.

"The food will get cold."

"That’s fine."

He gives in and makes use of him.

"Why don’t you get us something to drink?"

He knows Harry can manage that.

A minute’s more rifling in the kitchen, checking the contents of his refrigerator, and Harry returns to the living room, setting down two bottles of carbonated citrus Orelia from the corner Frittte.

He straightens and turns to peer down the short hallway.

Kim looks up from his croquettes, adopting a sterner tone.

"Absolutely do not enter my bedroom, Harry."

"What are you hiding in the bedroom?"

Hobby material, sexual miscellanea he’d prefer not to be seen, and his clothes and related tailoring paraphernalia, of course. 

Kim can’t even feel embarrassed. It’s none of Harry’s business and he won’t allow him to make it his business.

"What do you think I’m hiding in the bedroom?"

"It’s a mystery!"

"It’s _really_ not."

Warning thrills through him. He understands Harry, poised for action, will, in fact, without intervention, enter his bedroom.

He hardens his voice with practice from his lieutenancy. 

"You are not entering my bedroom, officer."

Harry’s shoulders slump. He relents. He turns back to the table to retrieve his own dinner, taking a seat in the armchair, his burly body filling it up.

"How is desk duty going?"

He’s been trying to speak to Harry regularly for the past week and a half, and the man seems grateful for it, even though for Harry it means standing on a corner on Perdition underneath the payphone’s hard plastic umbrella holding a conversation alongside passing drunks and passing traffic.

It’s better than Harry being one of the drunks.

Unfortunately, although the RCM employs horses along with bicycles in Jamrock and Faubourg due to considerable inhospitable terrain, and Harry and Vicquemare were formerly equestrian police, Harry’s healing and constricted shoulder is in no condition to operate either mode of transportation.

Precinct 41 apparently owns three additional motor carriages to the one Harry totaled, but reserves them for the use of lieutenants and sergeants. Not patrol officers like Harry, even those of the rank of detective.

"It’s still rough. I’m doing things too fast, I’m doing them too slow, I’m too thorough, I’m not thorough enough. If I thought Jean was just being a bitch about it I’d be pissed off, but it’s me. I’m not cut out for this rote task shit."

Harry sounds even more demoralized than two days ago, on Thursday, when Kim last spoke to him.

"I know you’re doing your best," he says with the patient gentleness Harry has no other source for.

From what little he’s seen of the man, and without specifically faulting him, he doubts Jean Vicquemare is well equipped to administrate Harry’s workload. He recognizes the kind of officer Vicquemare is, a man of intellect and action with little patience. 

An officer not unlike Harry.

"This bullshit wound felt better when it was bleeding. Healing is a sham," Harry grouses, but the sympathy seems to have defused him. 

"Keep your eye on the long term picture," Kim reminds him, this time stern, sliding another bite of croquette into his mouth. 

He’ll be overseeing Harry’s work himself, soon. He can’t let him think he’ll be lenient on him, or that Harry can weasel his way past Vicquemare’s authority through him. 

He’s not unsympathetic, either. Harry isn’t some slouch exaggerating an injury to take time off the job. He genuinely wants to be (quite literally) back in the saddle.

"They made a decision on the Kineema, yet?"

Kim brightens at the mention of the beloved vehicle — the motor carriage has all the personality of a living animal.

"Although we’ve determined it’s legally the property of the 57th, they’ve agreed to transfer it alongside me."

"That’s great, Kim! I told you there was nothing to worry about."

"Yes, well. You never know how the bureaucratic side of these things will play out."

The exact provenance of the Kineema had proven momentarily difficult to sort. It had spent brief time under the care of the property and evidence office, on paper, before being entered into the maintenance logs for repainting without moving from the spot it was originally parked in the station garage.

Kim might be able to expropriate a few hubcaps from the occasional rich, high twenty-something in place of issuing a fine that would never be paid, but it would reflect poorly on the RCM to recognize him as the de jure rather than de facto owner of the Kineema. 

No one had intentionally killed anyone to acquire the car, but under the wrong precedent an officer could do so in the future. 

He’s all too aware of the poverty of sworn officers of the RCM and the temptations it brings.

Part of him simply saw hubcaps he couldn’t afford, and he wanted them. It’s better in the end that he sold them to shelter Harry.

Kim didn’t like waiting in limbo while the 57th had a lawyer straighten out the paperwork. He trusted his captain wouldn’t separate them, but the sports MC is also an extremely valuable piece of property. Pushback at the administrative level wasn’t out of the question.

"You installed those helium headlights yet?"

"I’m afraid I haven't gotten around to it," Kim says. "I believe you were going to assist me? We’ll have time once the Kineema is parked at the 41st."

Harry’s mood has picked back up. He’s smiling at Kim over his food. If Harry can’t be happy about his personal circumstances, at least Kim can try and share his own good fortune.

"I’m still game for that," Harry says.

They speak a little on the possibility of Harry purchasing a phone for his apartment until, having put away his meal and finished his Orelia with the vigor he brings to everything else, Harry rises from the armchair, flexing his injured shoulder with a wince.

"You sure I can’t see your bedroom?"

"Officer."

Only a feint. There’s determination glinting in his eyes as he focuses on his real target.

"I didn’t get a look at this bookshelf."

"Please be careful with the aircraft. If you don’t touch it, that would be even better."

Harry is already picking up the aircraft. One big finger gives a rotor a spin.

Kim grows tense with concern. Harry is dextrous enough, but there’s a risk he’ll try to _play_ with it.

"You built this?" Harry asks, tipping it from side to side thankfully without attempting to simulate flight.

Kim wills himself to relax in the same way he wills aside the flutter in his chest at Harry’s flattering tone.

"A Caron Gypaète, the standard for the Revachol Revolutionary Air Brigade. Yes, I built it. I used to enjoy model kits, when I was younger."

He foregoes mentioning the model under construction in his bedroom.

Harry slides him a brief, contemplative look, but thankfully spares him. Kim’s anxious enough about enduring the man browsing the rest of the shelf.

"That was designed by…" Harry stops, searching his mind. "Jean-Pierre Caron?"

"Jean-Phillipe Caron," Kim corrects. 

"He added the folding element to the eight rotor design," Harry says with more confidence.

"That’s right," Kim says.

If Harry has been stumbling over the kind of facts he produced easily, almost miraculously, in Martinaise, he’s also lacking the same degree of chemical stimulation.

The model safely returned to the shelf, Harry begins perusing the books it contains.

A queasy feeling takes up in Kim’s stomach. He’s trapped reflecting on the childishness of some of his reading choices. In his personal opinion, a forty-three year old man has no reason to be reading popular science fiction. He wouldn’t be concerned to confess to owning some of the higher concept titles, but he hasn’t so narrowly restricted himself.

He regrets the shelves include several other low brow choices. Dramatic boiadero fiction, noir, at least three works of fantastique… The kinds of material that, like science fiction, he’s gone so far as to claim to hate.

It’s miserable specifically because for every other ridiculous thing about him, including some of his lighter reading choices, Harry is a genuine intellectual. The book on political theory he apparently enjoyed while delirious with and vomiting from alcohol withdrawal was heavy enough to crush an infant and, from browsing the other titles on his shelf, there’s not only more of the same but Harry also enjoys excruciating works of psychological realism with prose ponderous enough to cause physical pain. He’ll read about almost anything and will plow through dry material for the sake of increasing the collection of mostly-useless trivia that, at first, composed his only significant memories of their shared human world he tried and failed to leave behind. That’s not even to begin to touch on his grasp of entroponetical theory.

Kim owns works on the history of aviation and a variety of nonfiction about auto racing, he reads popular histories, and he has a respectable collection of literature, particularly from significant homo-sexual novelists. The shelves also include an array of technical literature for his infrequent reference. His collection is simply not particularly substantial compared to the books that are, admittedly mildewing, in Harry’s apartment.

His distaste at having his private life violated, his desire for carefully constructed control over his image, and his anxiety over intimate socializing have condensed into a single unpleasant storm.

Kim watches Harry pick up volumes and silently peruse their backs, knowing both that Harry won’t judge his taste in reading and that he’ll continue to judge himself against the standard Harry has set, despite that.

"You’ve got some great stuff here, Kim. You gonna mind if I borrow some of this?"

"No, of course not. Borrow what you want."

His chest shouldn’t constrict at the thought of Harry borrowing his books for _casual reading_. It does, anyway. He can’t help it.

He’s not even sure he could get through some of the books Harry owns if he did borrow them. He’s an intelligent man, but Harry prizes some threateningly insurmountable volumes.

"Hey, I remember this. Plaisance wouldn’t sell this to me. Said it was a hold that had been mis-shelved."

A smile breaks through Kim’s insecure desolation. Harry’s wagging his copy of _High Speed Love_ in the air with a mirthful grin. 

"You should read it. It’s not only essential to the history of the Tip Top Tournée but the relationship between Jacob Irw and Alfie Deletraz was a watershed event broadening the acceptance of homo-sexuality. Although that progress came at the cost of Alfie’s life, fans of the sport couldn’t deny the orientation of their idols."

Jacob Irw, the wild and suicidal champion of Tip Top. Alfie Deletraz, the rising star on the circuit who stole his heart and his titles only to die young on the track. The brief months of passion they shared from Alfie’s first victory to his ultimate demise.

Not only a riveting read, but an essential part of Kim’s own sexual awakening. He might not have identified his own homo-sexuality for years, yet, if not for the fame of those ill fated lovers.

"Yeah, think I’ll start with this one," Harry approves, setting it to the side. "Might borrow a few more. A lot of the stuff at my place is pretty heavy."

"Yes," Kim says. "Well."

Harry doesn’t reply, caught up again in the act of perusal. Kim knows Harry knows he’s uncomfortable and that Harry has probably had time to begin pinpointing why. Being understood doesn’t strike him as particularly useful in this situation. It changes nothing.

Finished with his croquettes and sipping the last of his Orelia, Kim forces himself to relax his shoulders, however incrementally, studying Harry’s back as Harry collects and analyzes data on him like some terrible, invasive radiocomputer.

All self-consciousness aside, to be the focus of Harry’s attention arrests him. Kim doesn’t see himself as particularly interesting, certainly not meriting this extended analysis. He’s a good mechanic, a talented driver, a conscientious detective, and he’d like to believe he’s sexually adept. However, confronted with an extroverted Dolorian polymath like Harry who he has to admit, however unsettling it may be, may have some form of paranatural abilities makes him feel incredibly ordinary.

It concerns him that all he’s done to merit Harry’s avid preoccupation is be the person Harry knows first and best in the wake of his fresh start on life.

But Harry looks good, tonight. Healthy. He’s straight backed and only reeks of an over-application of cologne. His hair has been washed and he’s with Kim in the present. All in all, a considerable improvement.

Kim’s crisis of self esteem gives way to reluctant affection for the man so earnestly paying a ridiculous amount of attention to his reading choices. The clenched feeling in his chest dissolves in a fragile moment of warmth.

It’s dangerous, of course, to allow an addict to move into his life as his closest friend. He can hardly allow himself to be unaware of the risk. 

Even though they’re having an extraordinarily normal evening, words Harry spoke to him only two nights ago remain impressed in his mind:

_Withdrawl, Kim. It’s hell. I’m in hell._

Harry collects a little stack of books and sets them on the table next to the door.

Having reconciled with his earlier anxieties, the slightest smile touches the corners of his lips as a self-pleased Harry turns back to him.

"Did you enjoy yourself?" he asks, while what he wonders is _Have you constructed a thorough psychological profile?_

"You’re gonna give yourself a hernia for no reason worrying that much about what you read for fun. People get to enjoy themselves. You’re people," Harry says in answer to the latter.

"Yes, well, forgive me if I don’t immediately take your advice on how to have _fun_ ," Kim jokes without malice.

"Hey," Harry says. "I need a cigarette."

Kim nods. He checks his wristwatch.

"I’ll join you."

He isn’t in the habit of smoking in his apartment. To have the scent of cigarette smoke clinging to every surface would present an inconvenient temptation.

They step out onto the third floor walkway, the light of Central Jamrock kilometers to the south drowning out the light of the stars. They light their cigarettes in companionable silence, sharing the flame of Harry’s green plastic lighter.

"People are gonna be relieved when you get to the 41st, have a pair of real lieutenants over C-Wing," Harry says, flashing a grin, after a minute of quiet.

"I’m certain you were a ‘real lieutenant’ during your tenure, detective, or they wouldn’t have promoted you. Twice," Kim reminds him, the taste of tobacco and chestnuts suffusing his senses. "It’s going to be a challenge rebuilding the Major Crimes Unit, but one I’m looking forward to."

"I made it as difficult as possible, just for you."

"Yes, I’m sure you _foresaw_ this before obliterating your memory. I’m grateful."

Harry leans heavy on the railing, taking a last breath of nicotine right down to the filter before grinding the cigarette out on the railing and flicking the butt into the night.

"Nine thousand eight hundred seventeen days until the end of the world."

Kim studies him in profile, no longer persistently flushed and with even the rosacea beginning to subside, hair long, beginning to thin at the crown of his head, and mustache and mutton chops thick. He tries to see beyond the wrinkles at the corners of Harry’s eyes, the way a lifetime of smoking has prematurely aged his skin and years of heavy drinking have further damaged him. 

He can almost imagine the man actually is just a year older than him. It’s the youth of his eyes.

"Do you really believe that?"

Harry glances his way.

"I don’t believe it, I know it. In here."

He taps his temple indicatively. There’s a rueful quality to his smile.

Kim no longer knows if he still disbelieves him.

"Khm. Well, try not to spread it around. It isn’t good for morale," he says, snuffing his own cigarette.

They return inside, where Harry immediately begins to interrogate Kim on his taste in science fiction.

Harry’s close attention has him brimming with warmth inside.

It’s completely unwelcome and not a bad way to spend the evening.

\----

**Thursday, 1 April ‘51**

Titus loves the industrial harbor. It’s where he’s spent twenty-four years of his life, working the docks with the summer sun beating down, in the winter snow and sleet, when the storms roll in, when his team’s shouting over the wind and the rain beats staccato on his goggles and they’re still moving freight in the shadow of the storm because that’s the job, year round. Even after the Hardie boys became a Union sanctioned outfit, he’d been picking up shifts, depending on what he can work in. Not because he had to, because it’s what he does. It’s part of who he is. First and foremost, he’s a débardeur.

He hasn’t been able to live that role since the strike started in December. The harbor has declared its independence from Wild Pines and re-opened for business, but the fallout from the violent lead up has left Titus neck deep in the disruption of local operations. 

The wind off the bay and the waves against the docks, sharing jokes with the boys in the face of dangerous work, the drone of airship rotors — he’s feeling the absence.

There’s one place in the harbor he can barely stand to be, so naturally that’s where he is. That’d be the Claires’ office, with Evrart sitting in front of him, fat and comfortable, celebrating his and Edgar’s twenty year reign.

Ingolf Lundqvist stands beside him, head of Evrart’s special operations. Vaasan stock, hair so blonde it’s white under the artificial lights. Tall enough with a cut jaw, he’s built without the muscle of a docker. He’s staff, not a union man, although he has union men working under him. 

Ingolf’s up to his ears in cameras, bugs, and informants, in charge of making sure Evrart knows everything going on in every corner of Martinaise and the harbor.

It’s been going on for a week now: missing files, misplaced supplies, little acts of sabotage to slow down operations. 

Evrart is animated before them. Titus has never seen him as engaged as he’s been since the coup against Wild Pines succeeded.

"...it won’t take long for one of them to make a mistake. If there was only just one of them, boys! We’re going to have to pick them out of the crowd and keep them on a leash. _Electronically_ , of course. A little inconvenience now is better than running up a debt to pay, later." Evrart leans back in his oversized leather chair and folds his hands behind his head. "So first things, first. Normally the Hardies handle _active threats_ , but you’re a little busy, aren’t you, Mr. Hardie?"

"More than a little. It takes time to get to know people."

Leaving out as many details of his operation as he can when talking to Evrart gets to be a pain. 

Evrart nods along sympathetically.

"Mr. Lundqvist, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to go the extra mile. We’re living in unprecedented times."

"Opening investigations on multiple targets will mean pulling some of my men away from their shifts at the docks. I’ll notify the foremen."

Titus doesn’t love the idea of them losing more of the labor force to security detail when he’s also recruiting from them himself. There are already longshoremen working overtime to get the harbor back in operation. 

"Naturally," Evrart says, then, "There’s one other pertinent matter to discuss. We may very well need _accomodations_ for our guests once we’ve identified them. They don’t have to be _first class_ accommodations, of course. Just secure enough to keep them safe and sound. This isn’t the riff raff we’re used to dealing with. We can’t expedite their retirement. I’m sure Mr. Hardie will be glad to help escort them to the premises, but arranging those premises will also fall on you, Mr. Lundqvist. Maybe a pleasant _home away from home_ in Martinaise?"

It’d be great if Evrart could speak straight. He already has his office swept for bugs twice a day. 

Titus gets the gist. They’re going to start making arrests. They’re not blowing these guys away. He’s glad Ingolf gets to deal with the details of this stuff so he doesn’t have to run it back over and over through his mind trying to pick out what he might have missed.

"I’ll arrange it," Ingolf says with a curt nod.

"Wonderful, Mr. Lundqvist! Wonderful! I have complete faith in you. And you, too, Mr. Hardie, of course. You, too. Both of your contributions to the advancement of social democracy are invaluable." Evrart leans forward, rubbing his hands together. "But you’re very busy men! Thank you for taking the time to meet with me. It’s best when we’re all on the same page. And if the two of you need to collaborate independently, I encourage you to take the initiative." 

A nod. A wink. Enough to say the less Evrart knows about the details, the better the man likes it. 

If the rest of it is a headache, Titus appreciates the faith in his competence.

"If that’s all, I’ll get back to it," Titus says, nodding toward the exitway. Out of everything Evrart puts him through, at least he’s never expected him to grovel.

"By all means! Have a wonderful day." Evrart pulls a fat wad of reál from his pocket, pulling out a bill without even looking at it and extending it across the desk. "Have a beer on me."

It’s a hundred reál note. Jackpot. 

Suddenly Titus feels like the whole meeting was worthwhile.

He takes it off his hands casually. It’s not good practice to act too indebted to Evrart.

"You too, Mr. Lundqvist," Evrart says with his big oily smile, passing a matching bill to the shorter man.

The two of them head out together.

"Let’s get together in a couple of days. You let me know what you’ve got cooking," Titus says to his co-conspirator, leaving the details vague. If there’s one place he’d put a bug, it’d be right outside Evrart’s office to try and catch some meaningful exit chatter.

"Gladly. I’ll look forward to hearing about what you’ve been up to," Ingolf says with a genuine smile. 

They may only get together to drink every once in a while — it’s good to keep up relations between their outfits — but as far as Titus figures it, for the almost six years he’s been here Ingolf’s always struck him as a good guy. 

He’s sure they’re both already thinking it: What if one of them is on the take from Wild Pines? 

They’re both in deep with the Claires. Some corruption and moral compromises come with the territory. That’s how business gets done. 

It also demands people open to doing business.

Titus has faith that Evrart keeps a close eye on the two of them. 

He doesn’t have anything to hide.

\----

SHIVERS: A man and a woman pass on a busy sidewalk in the shadow of a great skyscraper in La Delta. The sunlight glares off windows extending over two hundred meters above them. The man wears diamond cufflinks. He loses a manilla envelope that slides neatly into her designer leather bag. There’s a tear in her stockings, low, at her ankle. She had no time to pull on another pair if she wanted to make her rendezvous.

LOGIC: Paper is safe. Paper can’t be tapped.

INLAND EMPIRE: The revolution will be hammered through typewriter ribbons.

REACTION SPEED: You have no idea what she just said.

"I’m sorry, ma’am. Could you repeat that?" Harry asks. 

The young woman in front of him’s brow screws up with concern. Not for the first time.

"Are you alright?" 

EMPATHY: She can see you’re struggling to process her case.

PERCEPTION: "Break in" is scrawled in your own handwriting on the incident report.

RHETORIC: What was broken into?

"I’m fine. Everything’s fine. It might help if we start again from the top…"

"If it’s alright with you, sir, I’d prefer to speak with a different officer."

AUTHORITY: You are officer enough to handle this.

EMPATHY: She’s just experienced a crime and reporting it has become an even bigger hurdle.

VOLITION: Get another officer to take her statement.

"Of course. I’m really sorry about this. I’ll find you another desk officer. Just hold tight."

Harry gets up from his folding chair and exits the interview room to look for someone who has the focus to handle the young woman’s completely boring, ordinary, routine walk in report.

HALF LIGHT: Jean is going to find you. He’s going to yell.

He asks one of the other officers at the intake desk to take over the interview, embarrassed to hand off the incident report.

"You may just want to start a fresh one…"

ESPRIT DE CORPS: He’s baffled by the irregularity of what you’ve filled in as he carries the clipboard back to waiting the interviewee.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: We’re taking on water. Light a cigarette before you drown. Better yet, get your hands on some amphetamine.

Harry rubs his eyes until he sees stars and then digs up a stick of nicotine, holding it to the flame of his lighter until the cherry glows sunset orange.

PAIN THRESHOLD: Your mind has been scraped thin. There’s not enough of you to make it through the shift.

INLAND EMPIRE: The craving is a single silent scream, unending. It tears the thoughts from your head.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Enough sitting around. You need to get on your feet. You need to move!

When his fellow desk officer comes back to find Harry smoking and pacing the length of the intake booth, he tells him to go take a break.

The young woman he failed to interview doesn’t spare him a glance as she heads from the precinct back to the streets of Jamrock.

The walk to the coffee machine feels like an execution march, Harry’s mind fraying at the edges. He knows exactly what would drown that mental scream, the tension throughout his skull that makes his mind feel trapped; cornered; small.

He pours himself a cup of coffee.

A couple of drinks and the tension would wash away. His mind would open wide. His thoughts would have all the space they needed, an infinitely larger canvas.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: That’s the ticket. Mix in some pyrholidon and watch the colors bloom. There’s nothing to stop you.

LOGIC: You can’t afford speed, alcohol _and_ pyrholidon if you want to eat this week.

"Shitkid," Jean’s voice breaks in. "Why aren’t you at the desk?"

Harry blinks back to the present to realize he’s been holding the mug of coffee without drinking it for what seems to have been a significant pause.

"Needed to move," he says. He takes a drink. Caffeine’s a weak amphetamine, but it’s better than nothing. 

The coffee tastes cold.

"That was a trick question. You see, I actually went and _asked_ Officer Newport while you stood here not drinking your coffee for three minutes."

"Jean..." Harry says. 

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Whatever you do, don’t say you’re sorry.

"...the withdrawal’s really bad."

"This morning you told me it would help to work with people! Now you’re fucking up walk ins!" Jean snaps, although his heart hasn’t been in it for a few days. "The fuck am I supposed to do with you?"

EMPATHY: He wants this to end, too. He wants this to work.

ENDURANCE: There isn’t anything he can do with you. You’re caving in.

"What if I can’t do the job sober?"

Jean lowers his voice, even as his intensity deepens. Its ferocity makes up for what it lacks in volume.

"Not this. You’ve had this _theory_ before and ended up fucked out of your head. Withdrawal is temporary, Harry. Just don’t fucking drink!"

VOLITION: You can do this.

"You’re right. I’m s— not gonna drink. I won’t drink."

PERCEPTION: The coffee will be room temperature, soon.

As he drains his coffee with the same proficiency he brings to open bottles reeking of alcohol, his conviction seems less compelling. 

The display obviously failed to reassure Jean, either, from the expression on the man’s deeply pocked face as Harry lowers the mug.

"I expect to see you here tomorrow morning. Fucking sober. Get back to the desk. Do what you can."

PAIN THRESHOLD: It hurt less when he was yelling at you.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Yelling means he expects more of you. Now, he doesn’t know what to expect.

COMPOSURE: You’ve put him in a difficult position. Keep yourself together.

RHETORIC: Be professional for once in your life.

"Understood, Lieutenant."

Harry refills his coffee without making anything out of the baffled expression on Jean Vicquemare’s face, as if of all the things that could have left Harry’s mouth, acknowledgement of Jean’s position as his superior officer was the last one he expected.

He may not remember his several years of partnership with Jean, but the man provokes disproportionately strong emotions in him compared to his limited conscious experience. 

He wonders how somebody who felt so deeply for this man could fuck him over to the degree Jean got fucked over.

HALF LIGHT: Just what are you capable of?

He returns to the front desk.

He fucks up twice more before the end of the day.

He leaves work itching to call Kim and knowing if he calls he’ll need to bring more to the conversation than self pity. 

He’s already finished _High Speed Love_. He can focus on questions about Tip Top.

__

\----

**Friday, 2 April ‘51**

"That Maxime. I like him. He’s got it in him, too. He’s got those eyes," Alain says, one leg stretched out on the broad stairs that descend into the Bay of Revachol and the other leg drawn up to his chest.

It’s about seven o’clock and the Hardies — Titus, Eugene, Alain, Ruby, and now Kilian and Léandre — are relaxing on the sunken tiled patio below street level where the canal meets the bay. 

It’s a place where trash and graffito pile up and one bench is covered with and surrounded by cardboard where somebody slept rough, but Titus enjoys it here, with the wind coming off the sea and the lapping water loud enough to keep private conversations private.

All else being the same, he’d always prefer to be out on the water. The water’s warming up and the rowing club has started training. He’s been out on the bay twice. He doesn’t see a spring where he’ll have the time to train for competitive events with the other clubs in Revachol, but if he can’t fit in twelve hour shifts at the harbor damn if he’ll just sit on his ass.

"Is that why I’m here? Do I have those eyes?" Kilian leers down the patio at Alain.

Out of his first two interviews, in the end, the other longshoremen swore up and down for Kilian’s character. It’s true he has children, but also that he wants them to grow up in an independent Martinaise. Simon, though, it turned out he was a lone wolf. Titus didn’t feel safe bringing on someone nobody had a bead on with suspicious circumstances already dogging the union’s work.

Alain laughs.

"You’ve got a backbone. You don’t have the _crazy_."

"Léandre might, though," Eugene jokes. "I’m keeping an eye on him."

Léandre, leaned back on his elbows on the stairs, grins, ducking his head. Young and technically inclined, they’ll teach him to shoot but like Angus before him and Ruby, now, he’s not here to shoot anybody. He’s here to do radio work and to drive. Even so, his father was gunned down by besmertie. It’ll take some time to fit him into the group, but he’s got a chip on his shoulder.

"I’m not going to just let you poach my talent. I just got him," Ruby says, folding her arms and tilting her chin up, causing the young man to blush.

It’s tough, seeing that youth and uncertainty and having to think about Angie. A month ago, the young man was a fixture in the gang, insecure about his asthma, his digestive issues, the smell of his feet. He’d been recommended for his skill with electronics and worked that much harder to make up for the confidence he lacked. Once he got to know the kid, Titus got in the habit of talking him up, although the confidence he tried to instill never took. 

Never will take.

But that’s yesterday’s business.

"As far as I’m concerned, Maxime’s in," Titus decides. Alain’s right. Maxime has that edge. You can almost smell it off him. They need more of what they lost with Glen, and there’s no red flags in his resume. "We’ve got Garrett and we’ve got Bryce. "

"If I get an opinion, I don’t think Garrett’s gonna cut it in the long run," Kilian says. "He tried too hard to look tough to be tough."

"No, you’re right," Ruby says. "He really wanted to impress Hardie, but in that ‘go home and tell my friends about it’ way."

"How about his eyes, Al?" Eugene says.

"Like a puppy. Like one of those little toy dogs women keep in their purse."

Titus accepts it. 

"So much for Garret," he says. "Bryce?"

"He’s got muscle — but I wanna see him in a fight," Eugene reasons. "How about we let him go a few rounds with you? See if it rattles him."

Titus rubs his chin, squinting off at La Delta across the water.

"Yeah. Alright. I’ll shake him down. We’ll see what’s left."

Léandre glances up and down Titus from over where he’s reclining on the concrete. Being asked to fight Titus obviously never occurred to him. Titus can see him rallying his manhood, calculating just how dead his bravado would leave him.

"I wouldn’t pussy out of a shakedown," he says, "but I don’t think there’ll be any of me left."

"Al’s gonna teach you to handle yourself," Titus promises with a lopsided smile, but he doesn’t hate inspiring a little fear in the new kid. The fact he didn’t shy off from it’s a good sign. "Don’t think Al can’t kill you," he adds, "but he’s more your size."

"You’ll be shivving Madre scum before you know it," Alain swears.

The sun’s sinking lower over the bay, their bodies casting lengthening shadows down the patio. In the summer, it’s a good place to sit and drink, but it’s only the last day of March and the night air will bring a chill on. They’ll move this to the Whirling soon. These evaluations just aren’t meant to be overheard. He expects a Hardie to be able to take a lot more and hell of a lot meaner, whatever he chooses to dish out, but hurt feelings from somebody fragile like Garrett’s not great for the morale of the union. 

Not everybody’s cut out for this work. That’s kind of the point of digging up who is and beating them into a weapon, crude, at first, then deadly.

\----

Kim sits at his desk with a pile of manilla folders on his left, the desk lamp on and the first open in front of him.

This is the service history of Lieutenant Vicquemare, his ID photo paperclipped to the top right hand corner. 

He’s thirty-four years old, younger than Kim already expected. He might have placed the man at thirty-six or thirty-seven. He was assigned as Harry’s partner upon his promotion a little over two years ago. To make lieutenant at thirty-one is certainly an accomplishment.

How particularly unfortunate for his promising career to be derailed by Harry’s deterioration.

The unfairness of it instills Kim with a sense of responsibility. If the purpose of his transfer is to bring stability to C-Wing, it’s also specifically to be a partner Vicquemare can trust. That means redoubling his commitment to not allowing Harry to play them off each other.

He doesn’t think Harry would do it on purpose. He has, on the other hand, seen the effortless way Harry works.

He continues reading through Vicquemare’s service history. He pays attention to the performance reviews he’s been provided. Although the man has some history of being confrontational, it seems he centrally reserves his volume for Harry. Only the most recent two reviews mention altercations.

It fits with Kim’s own brief experience with him, Viquemare catching himself and even being apologetic and deferential when addressing him after a round of scathing words for Harry.

Harry’s folder is sobering reading. His career is a story of highs and lows. Whoever prepared the file for Kim went further back in the records to include the assessment written after his satellite officer previous to Vicquemare transferred to A-Wing. 

Depression. Binge drinking. Anger management incidents. Suicidal ideation. Delusional behavior. It was a comparatively minor episode compared to what led up to his meeting Kim, but all the symptoms are there. They surfaced and then disappeared, a passing shape on the water that since betrayed itself as a terrible leviathan.

He understands the message he’s meant to take away, between this old assessment and the many excellent evaluations before the sudden decline of last winter: Maintain vigilance. 

His chest hurts to read those glowing reports of Harry’s service in light of all he knows at present. 

He had heard the name Du Bois, of course, and in a positive light, just like Pryce, McCoy, and Berdyayeva. By the time he attached the name to Harry in Evrart’s office Harry’s interprectinct reputation was long since completely irrelevant. Kim had to work with the man beside him regardless of all variety of bewildering circumstances, that he had ever been spoken of with respect being the very least of them.

Now, he wants all this again for Harry. He wants to see him excel in a career tailor made for his clever mind and diverse skill set, that of a RCM detective, dissecting crime scenes, suspects and witnesses to bring about just resolutions.

Harry might be too far gone. His addiction might run too deep. There might not be enough of a man left to fight those undercurrents. It all might be too much stress for his ailing body. 

Sergeant Vicquemare’s warning comes back to him, unbidden.

 _A little premonition for you, lieutenant. Sooner or later — probably sooner — your new friend tells you he doesn’t need you. He will then suggest you should_ fuck off _. When that happens, I suggest you take his advice._

He has to believe it will be otherwise. If not for the sake of his own self confidence, then because Harry’s continuously improving health depends on it.

What he knows is Harry wants it all back, too.

He sets Harry’s file aside, heavier to him than when he first lifted it. 

He moves on to Minot, then Heidelstam, and then he begins to browse the prospective transfers from other wings, focusing foremost on those in line to receive promotion to sergeant.

When Harry calls, he allows himself a reprieve.

\----

**Saturday, 3 April ‘51**

On the beat, Harry dogs his targets like a bloodhound, pursuing question after question in close succession, pressing them hard and giving them no time to regroup their thoughts.

He has taken a different tact with this little project with Kim, scattering his questions over the course of lunch, taking his time to lure him out.

 _"Is there a real difference between being homo-sexual and hetero-sexual?"_ (Kim wouldn’t know. He’s never been hetero-sexual.)

 _"When did you know you were homo-sexual?"_ (Late. Until then, he’d been so sure his sexuality involved pistons and fuel.)

 _"Do you spend a lot of time on being homo-sexual?"_ (Where exactly would this time come from?)

 _"How do you know that somebody else is a homo-sexual?"_ (Secret vibrations pass through the eyes and the tips of the fingers.)

He holds no illusions he’s staved anything off. Harry is moving in for the kill.

Worse, Kim can’t rebuke him. Harry’s questions come from a place of possibility. They’re the same questions anyone else feeling out their own sexuality has. It’s an unspoken code that any capable faggot or dyke, when faced with someone adrift and searching, should share an amount of information they think that person can handle.

Now, over his croque-monsieur, grilled bread, boiled ham and dripping cheese, Harry closes on him:

"What’s it like, the homo-sexual underground?"

Kim expected this question. He sets down his folded crêpe, wrapped in peeled back paper.

"Lonely."

A win, Harry’s brows twitch narrow, equal parts curiosity and concern.

Kim spreads his hands on the table and, sighing quietly, indulges the man’s fascination with the same briskness as every other question.

"If you knew anything about cruising, you forgot. You find a stranger, and you take him to a motel. Or you go to his home, or his lorry."

"And then you…"

"Fuck." He drops the pretense of distance. "And then I go back to the job."

His pulse quickens. It hurts to think about his fragmented sex life. He would prefer no one knew how furtive and isolated it’s been.

There’s no other choice for him. Before ever recounting past, interpersonal difficulties, police officers aren’t popular in homo-sexual circles – with faggots. What’s a slur from the mouths of the uninitiated takes on a different cast on the scene: a hard word, a terse word, cutting and defiant.

Faggotry is no longer illegal, but too many officers have used and use their position of power to vent their prejudices for there to be trust between the RCM and the homo-sexual community. Memories of greater violence from the time of illegality are still raw and fresh history.

Kim believes in the RCM as a civilian organized civil service that strives to do more good than harm, but he lives with the knowledge many people he counts as kin behave otherwise. Taking on the trappings of authority and being handed a gun has worked a dangerous transformation on them.

Kim focuses back in on Harry to see him detached from their present, rubbing his sides as if he’s cold. Kim doesn’t know exactly what goes on during these cold spells, only that they bring him insight. One of them led to him finding Ruby.

A beat passes and the man returns to the diner, the distance in his gaze resolving. His expression becomes one of curiosity. A lump sticks in Kim’s throat. Whatever this is, it will be unpleasant. He shouldn’t have consented to it and he already has.

"You ever want something more?"

Kim spares a moment to fortify himself, knowing the risk of offering too much when Harry, so perceptive and so genuine, unselfconsciously slips into technique.

"With who, Harry? I’m not someone who invites close confidants into my life. And if they’ll tolerate that, then there’s the job. Even if they’ve never had a poor experience with the police, most people don’t understand why I would volunteer to risk my life for five thousand five hundred reál a year. Some of the men I’ve risked letting know I’m with the RCM, they either hate what I do or don’t want to be there if I don’t come home. I used to think it could be different. I understand it can’t, now."

"There have to be other officers looking for the same thing. You ever—"

"Harry. That’s enough."

There’s only so much he can give. A detailed explanation that he’s a lieutenant in the RCM and almost everyone he works with is a subordinate officer remains beyond him. Harry, no stickler for hierarchy, or process, or, sometimes, even the law, wouldn’t understand.

He’s had two sexual encounters since Dom died and left him with an excess of responsibility, both as the sole administrator of his wing and in fully assuming responsibility for cases Dom had taken the lead on. While he’s not completely opposed to repeating the most recent one, he doesn’t see a long term future with someone unlikely to extract himself from the narcotics trade, however convoluted its politics.

He picks up his crêpe, but he hasn’t escaped.

No, Harry is too damn good. He knew what Kim meant: _That’s enough about me._

Harry senses there’s mileage left before he wears him out.

"Where would I go if I wanted to go cruising?"

Kim makes a point of biting into the crêpe, spinach and mushroom, ham, shallots and cheese.

He could rattle off street names and the colorful names of bars despite the fierce spike of foreboding through his gut. Perhaps better to indulge him? Once Harry lays hold of an idea, he can’t let it go. How is it any of Kim’s business where Harry puts his dick?

—no, this time it is entirely his business, personally and professionally.

He takes his time. He chews and he swallows. He takes a sip of his coffee.

His brow furrows and his lips press tight. It’s all apology.

"I can’t tell you that. There’s too much alcohol on the scene and too many drugs."

Harry frowns but he seems to accept this. His own eyes slant to his coffee. His gaze lingers there as he weighs it out in his head. (The coffee is probably not talking to him.)

A flinch and Harry looks up. Suddenly, he’s laughing.

"Kim, you _son of a bitch_. You really meant it when you asked me if you should get lifted on the job. I thought you’d just got beaten around the head."

Kim cuts off a laugh that comes out as a snort.

He’s been caught. Well, he deserves it.

"I did get beaten around the head. I _also_ considered getting high on amphetamine and I decided against it. You made me run all week. The case was going nowhere. I was tired."

He gives his memories of speed, in his history almost always cocaine, a moment of consideration: lines on bathroom sinks, lines on motel dressers, once a bump riding on his knuckle. He hasn’t gotten high often, no, but he’s forty-three. He had his chances time and again on the gay scene, and sometimes he took them.

He can only affect so much moral posturing about amphetamines. 

He resumes his composure.

"I’d never use it in my work, but I haven’t been completely averse to it. I’ve only gotten high under… special circumstances."

"Think I’ll ever be around when those circumstances come up?"

"Definitely not."

He’s sure because one hundred percent of those circumstances have involved, if not sex, heavy touching. Even if Harry wants to experiment with his sexuality, and even if Kim is homo-sexual, and even on the remote chance that he considered getting high — it’s been seven years — beyond any concern for their friendship Harry is one of those subordinate officers who, particularly considering his psychiatric state, is completely off limits.

The further Harry recovers the less Kim can lie to himself that Harry is unattractive. Kim will ignore it, but he’s not immune to the fact. The man may be aging, and aging faster than he should be, but he has a healthy, muscular bulk and laugh lines crinkling the corners of his eyes. He’s hirsute in a vigorous, masculine way and he has that eye-catching dimple in his chin. Kim could go on.

He neatly consigns those facts and their potential repercussions to irrelevance.

He’s known the man almost exactly one month and, frightening to realize, in his own intensely private way he loves Harry more than anyone else in his life. More than anyone he’s known in years except Dom — although, while their relationship was chaste, no one could expect to simply step in to fill the void of his partner of five years. 

The extent of Kim’s desire to be beside Harry will most certainly be confined to keeping company. 

The animal part of himself, the part hungry for touch – for flesh and for cock – has been entirely under his control for the greater part of his homo-sexual life.

_He remembers sitting sideways on a wooden swing worn smooth by years of hard weather, watching the tide slowly recede and sometimes watching Harry as the man stared ahead at his totaled motor carriage. Kim waited, but it wasn’t the sea he waited on, it was for the realization to dawn on Harry that the motor carriage belonged to him._

_He felt nothing but compassion. The moment would be terrible. They spoke and they bantered. Kim smiled, and Kim remained patient. Harry sat in profile relative to Kim and Kim tried to imagine the man he might have been before his life began to circle the drain._

_No question if he cared for the man, by then, on that third day. He watched him there as they waited on the coast with a comfortable glow in his stomach._

_It didn’t matter that Harry had been drinking. And doing anti-radiation drugs. And abusing amphetamines. And burning through packs of cigarettes. Kim could by then no longer escape the fact that the drugs weren’t addling him. Harry’s methods worked. He was among the most effective officers Kim had ever seen. And kind. Not interested in shooting his gun for the adrenaline high or making arrests that ruined lives, but in restoring life to victims and even transgressors._

_Harry solved each of them, and then he did his best to save them, as crippled as he was, himself, and as close to beyond saving._

_Kim must have loved him already, but not in the way he might have imagined falling in love if he imagined meeting a romantic partner. Harry made it simple to love him. Kim simply wanted to see him survive their ordeal because Harry deserved to. He needed nothing from him._

Harry looks a little disappointed they won’t be snorting coke together, but in an abstract way that will pass.

Kim hopes this has been it: the finale. His friend has no realistic way to intentionally pursue homo-sexual sex. It’s unfortunate for him, but he also put himself in that position first by partying too hard for any one man and then by committing himself to recovery. The only possibility is incidentally meeting someone right for him, someone low key. That will be entirely up to chance, or maybe to fate. Harry believes in that sort of thing.

The lieutenant won’t consider the alternative: Harry slipping back into a drug heavy lifestyle.


	3. Chapter 3

**Friday, 9 April ‘51**

The open wide interior of the abandoned brick silk mill that now houses Precinct 41 was turned into a bullpen, orderly rows of matching desks lined up without separation for the purpose of collaboration, fluorescent lights hanging from the high ceiling similarly lined up in marching order.

Between the ceiling lights and the building’s huge windows, there would be light enough to continue the dexterous work of milling silk. There’s more than enough to perform police work by, the building airy and open after the removal of its enormous machines.

Along the back wall of the ground floor are the lieutenants’ and captain’s offices, glass fronted and partitioned by sound proof walls, overlooking the bullpen with curtains for privacy.

Despite the nominal distinction of being housed within an office, the desks are the same as those outside, faux wooden surfaces with green mats for traction, rotary phones and squat typewriters and a specimen of the ubiquitous metal lamps with lime green shades and plastic bases with big yellow switches.

It’s the RCM. Everything was bought in bulk at the lowest price. The 57th was similarly uniform, as was Kim’s earlier precinct at home in Faubourg where, when he was finally set free from the residential abundance of children, they hadn’t needed an additional lieutenant. 

Sitting at his new desk, so much like the old one and the one before that, Kim feels gratitude that his transfer performed the additional favor of raising an officer from his own past predicament. He made room for a sergeant at the 57th in line for promotion.

It wasn’t one of his own sergeants, but then if his sergeants had been sufficiently competent he never would have left his wing under temporary oversight to personally attend to the case of the hanged man in Martinaise.

His first week at the 41st has been a blur of names and faces. He started a new notebook to keep up with his new co-workers: names, appearances, and relevant facts. He briefly reviews it every evening. Like at the 57th, before, his discomfort over what initially felt to him a socially insurmountable task has been meticulously sorted into something better manageable.

For all he felt star struck coming to work alongside RCM officers famous for their exploits against tremendous odds, each day draws him further into the reality that no one officer would have to undertake such feats of courage in a better manned district not overrun by besmerties.

Since he arrived, he’s been fielding interviews alongside Lieutenant Vicquemare. 

As well as interviewing prospects from the other three wings of the 41st, they’ve had interviewees from the precincts in Faubourg, and one from the 57th. Pryce leveraged the fact that C-Wing has come under new administration to convince the top brass to potentially redistribute personnel. 

These strangers have made their way into the notebook, as well.

“I think we move aggressively on Guillermo Rosales,” Vicquemare is saying, leaning on the edge of Kim’s desk with coffee in hand. “We bring on a legitimate sergeant and everything else will be easier.”

Kim flips to Rosales’ page in his notebook, skimming down it with the cap end of his uncapped ballpoint pen.

“He has the requisite experience, and he sounded amenable to a transfer. I see no reason not to request a second interview next week.”

“Good. That’s decided, then,” 

They need to take every possible measure to install personnel who will lure in talent. C-Wing’s reputation lies in the gutter among tare and cigarette butts.

Kim has already witnessed the impact Harry had on former C-Wing officers still with the precinct. _I took this interview because I respect you, Viq. I didn’t want to make it look like you’re not worth working for, but as long as Harry’s here I’m not coming back,_ a dark skinned man in a well fitted uniform apologized. Kim rather regretted it, but recognized that was mostly because the man looked a little like Dom.

Kim tries to follow Vicquemare’s gaze as the man lifts his chin and angles his head, body tilting a few degrees to the side. He’s not surprised to see he’s tracking Harry across the bullpen through the glass.

“Something suspicious, Lieutenant?”

“Not that I can see, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t fucked something up,” Vicquemare says.

Kim has been unsurprised to find managing Harry extraordinarily difficult, due to already being well informed on the difficulties Harry has been experiencing. They’ve had to negotiate a new normal in their evening conversations. Naturally, Kim wants to hear Harry’s side of the incidents he’s had to adjudicate during the work day. However, he’s also his lieutenant and can’t be expected to apologize for actions taken on the spot while handling the situations Harry creates. 

He creates situations for Kim and Vicquemare every day. Kim can tell Harry’s frayed, and the shift in their relationship can’t be helping when Harry has no one else.

He already misses the easiness of their friendship. He tells himself they can regain it as Harry recovers. The withdrawal symptoms will pass, and soon enough he’ll also be fit to ride a horse and they’ll be able to talk about case work. Kim is patient. Things will smooth themselves out.

“We can’t watch him for entire shifts,” Kim points out.

—although it might be better advised. Harry started the day by misfiling one hundred and twenty-two documents. Kim could see the frustration and upset Harry hid so poorly.

Vicquemare sighs and drops his vigilance, turning back to Kim.

“I want to believe he’s recovering, but I don’t see any evidence.”

“You know better than I do that he’s been ill a very long time,” Kim says. “I wish we could assign him work he’s better suited to. The present situation is no good for anyone.”

“It was a fucking mistake bringing him back on. I should have put him on disability pension,” Vicquemare says. 

The frustration in his voice matched with the sorrow of his expression as he fails to meet Kim’s eyes speak of regret, but regret most likely born out of a genuine sense of responsibility for Harry’s well being.

Kim shakes his head.

“No. He’d drink away his pension, alone. He wants to do this job. He simply isn’t fit for desk work, under any circumstances.”

“Drink it away for the last month of his life,” Vicquemare mutters. “The man’s organs are on the brink. His bloodwork is awful! He showed me as much and the drinking only got worse.”

“Lieutenant,” Kim says carefully, “we’re letting him derail our own work. But perhaps some time we could have dinner after our shift? We already have a subject of mutual interest.”

He doesn’t like the sound of what Vicquemare just said, but he’s already discerned it’s his own place to catch his new partner when his emotions over Harry run away with him. 

“You’re right,” Vicquemare grudges. “And sure. That’d be good. We could even _not_ spend the whole time talking about the shitkid.”

Kim redirects him to discussing other promising interviews. They can neither afford to have C-Wing this severely understaffed nor to spend another full week on recruitment.

Labor negotiators are getting bolder. The strike at the Greater Revachol Industrial Harbor was followed up by a strike among the coal magnates at Terminal YC, Coal City’s ground based distribution center. The meat packers are agitating, as are the bus drivers, who have had to reduce service to outlying areas over the years, diminishing their budget, and who are asked to drive dangerous routes. Even greater disquiet surely lies ahead.

Evrart had been right, Krenel mercenaries killing union men riled the working class in Revachol and beyond. It drew communal attention to the corruption among and exploitation by Coalition capitalists and had all parties grimly looking down what could be their own fates.

Evrart promised class war. 

Kim is sympathetic to the maltreatment of workers in Revachol. What he has a difficult time wrapping his mind around is inciting violence to enrich Evrart and people like him. He has no faith the people themselves will see returns.

More deaths are going to follow. A functioning RCM is a potential tool to prevent them.

\----

Land’s End has thawed from the icy winter. The reeds have shifted from dry, dead brown to stringy green, their fanned heads bobbing white in the silent wind cutting across the exposed shore.

Ear plugs clog up Titus’ ear canals, the same corded polymer plugs he wears under his helmet in the harbor. Now they’re blocking out the percussion of shot after shot as Eugene orders _Fire. Reload. Tap. Aim. Fire._

Titus is standing back, watching the recruits battle to keep pace, dropping paper cartridges in the dirt and fumbling their loading rods. The point of the exercise is, if not to succeed, to breathe, get it back together, and be ready for the next round. 

They spent the night before making cartridges, sober, and now they’re spending the morning shooting, sober.

Titus has decades of memories of springtime with Glen, picking out a couple different muzzleloaders from his arsenal — different calibers, more or less barrels — and rolling cartridges anything but sober at Glen’s workbench, sitting side by side on rough hewn stools, hogs packed under their lower lips and a spittoon on the floor between them.

They’d amble down the shore out past the fishing village, out here where there’s nobody to catch a bullet, set up their range and shoot until the cartridges ran out. They’d bring whiskey, maybe spiced rum — prep themselves for a long day’s drinking.

Rite of spring, blowing away tare and sinking holes into sheet metal.

Didn’t seem right inviting somebody else this year, maybe on account of the fact it was the one night a year Titus reliably got ass. Excepting three years ago when he kissed Glen and got himself kicked out of bed and called a faggot, though it might’ve been worth it for the minute Glen answered him.

He only wishes the guy could be here. Demonstrating rolling cartridges, correcting shooting stances, explaining field stripping a pistol — those were the times Glenny got downright social.

Eugene calls _Weapons down_ and it’s time to step in and share observations, him and Eugene and Alain going down the line giving advice. Demonstrations, too. 

Kilian. Léandre. Maxime. Bryce. Zdeno. 

Fresh blood. Bonds to build. He’s never brought so many people on to the outfit at once. Even if Léandre and Zdeno are gonna work under Ruby, they ultimately answer to him. 

He likes to think that unless somebody’s fucking around on his turf he’s a friendly guy. This much chatting, though, and all of it — from the right way to hold a gun to building trust — being life or death is pushing his limits. No slacking. No flagging. No fucking up. Keeping what all five recruits each need straight in his head.

They’ve been at this for hours, today, starting with instruction and leading up to live fire, and they’ll put in another hour, at least.

When he was getting hot around the collar over concerns he might get pushed out of the job, concerns that sharing the headlines meant he was slipping, he wouldn’t have welcomed the thought of hanging back and letting Ruby lead the conversation when they hit the union box later. 

She’s brushing up on her gunmanship, right now, but later she’ll turn up her own friendly and keep on top of keeping the conversation flowing along with the beer, and Titus? He can sit back and look big, something that doesn’t take much work.

It’s a rhythm they haltingly shared, before, when Ruby’s easy knack with the men was slowly pervading the union box. Now that he’s stopped fighting it, it’s started coming natural to them.

He’s not sure what he used to be thinking. The only way she’d want to take over his job is if he dies, in action or otherwise. She isn’t a natural born killer any more than he is. 

He pulls out his Ister 50 at the next line-up. No hesitation. He stays in practice. 

The big gun goes off like a canon, his arms giving smoothly with the recoil. By the time he’s done clustering his shots, there’s nothing left of the corroded sheet metal in that vicinity.

The effect on a human body is more dramatic. If the entry hole is only a little bigger than a smaller caliber pistol, the exit hole’s an explosion. 

But then, he doesn’t need a gun for intimidation purposes. Yeah, he’ll let people know he has it to keep them in line, but most of the time he never needs to draw it. Unless his adversary already has a gun drawn, themself, his fists are usually gonna be enough.

That’s why he carries something that, when he does draw it, leaves a fine human vapor. At that point force has escalated.

When he’s given it a minute to cool down he secrets the gun away in its holster, satisfied he only landed one shot way out of the way. The thing’s not exactly intended for continuous firing.

He can feel the heat of it against his side.

It’s time for friendly chatter, some jokes, more tips from Eugene and Alain. They leave their setup out on Land’s End and head back to Martinaise in a pack.

He stays vocal until he’s shouted for beer, flashing Ginette at the bar, a friendly, flirty smile. Even he’d say she’s a little young for him, but she’s got a laid back attitude toward men that he can appreciate. She’s a tits out kind of girl, and they’re great tits, where Sylvie had had a kind of down home practicality. 

He wouldn’t mind shooting his shot sometime — he’s seen her laugh enough guys off to know what to expect if she’s not down for the night, but the last time he fucked was with a prostitute he knows. There’s so much going on that pulling pussy sounds like a trial.

Besides, he’s never seen Ginette actually take a guy up on an offer. For all he knows she’s got a guy, or maybe she’s more Ruby’s type. He’s keeping that on his radar, what with learning Klaasje tried to buy her off with sex, too.

Ginette brings the beer and the rebuilt Hardie boys crack into it after a long day sober.

It’s now that Titus lets himself lapse into relative quiet.

\----

Ruby takes her habitual spot, hopping up to sit on the middle cafeteria table, back to the window, her knee drawn up to let her turn toward the room.

The room is packed. Hardie, Eugene, Alain, Hardie’s new men, her two operators. They’re all tired from a day on the peninsula, some more than others.

She raises her beer toward Léandre and then Bryce.

“You boys did alright for your first time handling a gun.”

“Yeah,” Maxime chimes in. “Hit some tare and everything.”

“Everybody made progress,” Alain agrees, then takes a drink.

“You’re not bad for somebody who didn't used to carry,” Eugene points out to Ruby. Maybe it’s more of a question.

“I put the gun away when I got out of Villalobos,” she says. “When the cops were after me, I dug it out. I’m obviously not a crack shot.” She offers a self-effacing smile. “But I’ll work on it.”

“We’ll let some of you boys who don’t have your own piece try some other models out. Took us awhile but we’ve got guns on hand,” Titus says.

Ruby knows Titus inherited Glen’s arsenal. She remembers the blonde haired man’s excitement giving her a tour of his workshop, bolted door and barred windows, taking out one piece after another and explaining what made them different from each other. He showed her how to operate a nock cannon, the most impressive firearm he owned.

That had been the first time he invited her over. It was night and day to see him happy and relaxed, in his element with nothing to defend himself from.

They got together to drink a couple more times before she asked him.

_Glen, you’re gay like me, aren’t you?_

She’s glad she led with ‘like me’ because it was still another half hour’s battle before she calmed him down from that one, promising him she hadn’t heard it from anybody, that a lesbian just knew these things. He was steaming and huffing like she’d reamed him out.

It was true she hadn’t heard it from anybody else, but it was also clearly blindingly obvious to all the Hardies. They even teased him over it. The trick for them was to never acknowledge it openly. Glen didn’t go off as long as he got to pretend.

She hasn’t pinned any of the new boys for queer, yet, but what wasn’t true was that lesbians just know these things. There’s all varieties of gay.

Most of the boys are falling into natural conversations. Bryce, Maxime and Zdeno have started talking about rugby. It’s in season and the Martinaise Burning Rhinos aren’t exactly on a winning streak. Hardie chimes in from time to time, but with questions. It sounds like regularly making rugby matches has been out. 

Between helping her with the logistics of the operation, his job as local sheriff with the Hardies, and sometimes helping out Ingolf, who she knows from rebuilding her radio setup, he’s kind of been working himself to death. She’s been trying to pick up some of the load.

Eugene and Léandre are talking about music. Alain is getting his drink on, but participating in both conversations. That leaves Ruby to draw a bead on Kilian. She slides from her perch to drop in next to him.

“How’s everything going, man?”

“Is it obvious?”

“If it was obvious I would have led with the problem,” Ruby says, smile reassuring.

“It’s the wife. She learned we were going shooting and started having second thoughts. You know how it is.” He glances over Ruby. “—well, maybe you don’t. ‘Why does it have to be you, Kilian?’ That kind of thing.”

Ruby bites her lower lip in thought, nodding in sympathy. She hasn’t nailed down if Kilian is on his wife’s side, so she floats:

“Is there anything I can do to make it easier? If _you’re_ having second thoughts it’s one thing, but if you aren’t I could talk to her. Woman to woman.”

Kilian’s expression firms. Something passionate fires up inside him.

“I’m not having second thoughts. I look at my kids and I look around me and I don’t want them to grow up like I had to: ass end of nowhere, poor.” He exhales. “We need money to start investing in Martinaise, right? Evrart’s got a crooked plan, but we’ve played it Wild Pines’ way our whole lives and look at us.”

“Fuck Wild Pines, man!” Alain chimes in, lifting his beer toward Kilian. 

It makes the man smile. He looks back to Ruby.

“Can you talk to her? She thinks this is just some macho bullshit. My midlife crisis. She’ll listen to you.”

“Of course I can.”

Even with an eccentric style of dress and rocking a rainbow of hair, she’s never had a problem putting other women at ease. She doesn’t imagine it’ll be different with Kilian’s wife.

“Thanks, Rubes,” Kilian says fondly.

The smile she returns is wider than usual. It feels good, being part of an outfit with good people. People just looking out for their town, their kids. It’s nothing like working for M. 

She almost lost her place here, and she’s glad to be back.

If she could trade Hardie’s new attitude toward her for the four lives that were lost, she would. But there’s no returning to the past. 

She makes small talk about Kilian’s kids, then drifts as the conversations mix up.

\----

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Are you having a good time, yet? I told you this would be the start of a great night.

LOGIC: The bad times don’t begin until you’re sober, again.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Your brothers and sisters will be disappointed in you.

HALF LIGHT: Kim will hate you. Kim’s never going to speak to you again.

COMPOSURE: It’s one six pack. None of them need to find out.

Harry lets the voices roll as he cracks open a fifth bottle with the bottom of his plastic lighter.

He wishes he could say he wasn’t clear how he got here. He remembers exactly how he got here.

He saw the six pack in the grocery store cooler. It has a colorful graphic of two red cherries ripe to burst – you can tell from the little action lines – and a pair of cinnamon sticks set on a black background. It’s a seasonal winter sour, priced to sell at the start of April. It looked good. He missed the taste of beer. It had a safe number there in red print: 4.5%. Practically nothing.

Some people might think a six pack is a six pack, but Harry thinks he can get by with just enough to take the edge off. His organs have the steam for this. It isn’t Potent Pilsner, a beer that’s only selling point is its 9.2% ABV.

The way things have been going, Harry deserves some beer. Some relief. 

What’s left of his withdrawal-depressed mind has barely been dragging him through the day. Moods come and go, moments where he suddenly feels completely hopeless at ever regaining full use of his arm moving or almost moving him to tears. Fits of helpless anger leave him wanting to lash out with nothing to vent his fury on. The one state he never cycles through is feeling sharp — feeling one hundred percent. 

Even though he knows Kim has a job to do, he didn’t expect it to be so hard to have Kim at the 41st. Every day he feels like he’s disappointing him. They’re still friends, and it’s not Kim’s fault. It’s Harry’s.

He worked through the six pack slow. Right now, he’s barely got a buzz going, but the world is softer, and his body relaxed. 

He just hasn’t hit that watery feeling where he really gets into the flow.

He holds the bottle in his hand away to eye it critically.

Doubts form as to whether the last two bottles can get him there, even if he puts them down one after the other.

It’s starting to look like the nonstop pressure shaving him down to nothing in his own mind won’t ease up unless he gets deeper in his cups. 

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: I’ve been waiting to tell you this really isn’t going to cut it.

Harry’s brow knits at the wave of dissatisfaction. He knocks the rest of the bottle back. 

INLAND EMPIRE: This is how it begins. The cascade. The deluge. The unmaking.

ENDURANCE: Another six pack of this soda pop wouldn’t put a dent in you.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: It’s only eight o’clock. Go in for the real deal and let that sweet chemistry take you home.

CONCEPTUALIZATION: It’s the only home you have.

Harry searches his thoughts for his better angels, but the intoxication has lulled them into silence. Instead of a voice of reason, there’s only a too familiar and mounting need. There was never a chance he could get relief from this six pack.

Even as he pops the cap from the sixth beer and drains it in a stubborn attempt to demonstrate that he can, anxiety starts building. Familiar fear. He let himself drink, but he’ll be spending a miserable hour just teetering on the precipice of release and then a long night plagued with unfulfilled desire.

He can save the situation if he takes it one step further. 

CONCEPTUALIZATION: You’re floating on your back on the surface, getting a sunburn. You need to beat the heat. If you dip your head under the water, it’ll come up clear.

RHETORIC: An elaborate metaphorical justification.

VOLITION: I can only tell you to stop. I can’t stop you.

“Tell me to stop,” Harry says aloud, empty bottle in his hand.

Nothing but silence.

The pressure in his head is clenching like some invisible vise.

PAIN THRESHOLD: It will stay, and stay, and stay, crushing your thoughts to shit every minute until your body finds the reset button.

INLAND EMPIRE: It’s somewhere underwater.

The anxiety subsides a little as he sets the bottle aside and gets his shoes on, that voice always crooning and cajoling for and demanding more promising what a good, good thing he’s doing and praising the sweet glory they’re about to embrace.

The anxiety disappears as he steps off the street into the bright electric light of Frittte.

There’s everything he needs in the overhead cabinet behind the counter.

The pressure in his head’s gone. He’s breathing easy as he asks with a smile for a four pack of Potent Pilsner and a couple bottles of Commodore Red. Luckily few of the teenagers Frittte employs stay on the job long enough for him to have a reputation. The whole transaction is judgement free and he leaves the store feeling good, bag held to his chest.

LOGIC: Your symptoms have been relieved, but you haven’t opened a bottle yet. You need to examine this, not throw away your sobriety.

REACTION SPEED: There’s a public trash bin beside you. You can unload this purchase before you reach the apartment.

Harry stops on the sidewalk, eyeing the bin. Electricity races beneath his skin, hairs prickling, his whole body on edge like when his mind’s eye wants to show him something, except there’s nothing para-natural about this vision. He’s picturing himself hefting the loaded paper bag into the trash and leaving here unburdened.

EMPATHY: It’s what Kim would want. Kim would be proud of you.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: What are you doing? Don’t listen to these straight edge fuckers. Get popping those corks and get blasted. This train’s already left the station, sweetheart!

One block later and he acknowledges the bag is not, in fact, in the trash bin. It’s cradled under his arm, just like it was before.

He wants to blame the 4.5% ABV beer. He _tries_ to blame it. Except by the time he locks his apartment door behind him, he’s almost completely sober.

...and the pressure in his head is back.

INLAND EMPIRE: It’s because you interrupted _the ritual_.

There’s a phantom weight in his chest, like he’s short of breath, as he takes the first bottle of Commodore Red out of the bag and sets it on the kitchen counter.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: This is the shit. Your one way ticket to paradise. You’re almost there.

He goes to the desk in his room and retrieves a ballpoint pen, carefully passing over the one he got from Kim. Back in the kitchen, it’s easy to peel the tin off the top of the Commodore Red, grasp the pen in hand, and put pressure on the cork until it sinks free into the depths of the wine with a satisfying _plop_.

He puts the bottle to his lips and the torture resolves itself again. No pressure. No breathlessness. Just the bitter wine pouring over his tongue.

LOGIC: No one gets drunk that fast. There is no excuse to do this.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: It will be impossible to hide this from Kim, tomorrow.

HALF LIGHT: Fuck Kim for trying to get in your way.

Harry doesn’t like that last one. Kim’s the only friend he’s got. Kim’s trying to help him.

It just doesn’t matter.

\----

Kim gets the phone call a little after eleven o’clock.

_Kim. I fucked up. Can you come over? I need you to come over…_

The fury that floods his chest doesn’t stop him from saying yes. It doesn’t keep him from pulling on his clothes, or walking the extra blocks to the overnight service bus stop when he should be in bed.

He doesn’t second guess his reaction. Anger drives action. It doesn’t matter if it’s anger with Harry, or the facts of addiction, or himself for putting himself in the position he finds himself in now.

Restless, he doesn’t sit down, holding the hand strap although the eleven fifteen bus is sparsely peopled.

There’s a screaming baby in the arms of a woman sitting at the back. She isn’t even trying to quiet it. Kim realizes with chagrin that he’s given her an uncharitable look at the same time he recognizes she looks exhausted. He shifts his gaze to the window beside him and wills himself to tune out the racket.

She bustles off only one stop before him. It gives him no time to strategize, but as he approaches the wretched building where Harry makes house he recognizes he’s so far from knowing what to expect it doesn’t make a difference.

He braves the elevator and steps off into the familiar hallway. When he knocks, there’s silence — and a flurry of panic — but when he tries the doorknob, it’s open.

Harry’s downed a bottle of Commodore Red and two and a half Potent Pilsners, all sitting open on the card table, the white light of the room’s single exposed lightbulb gleaming brightly off the glass.

Harry himself is on the couch. Alive, thankfully. Alive enough for Kim’s aggravation to receive a second wind, Harry glassy eyed and his eyes swollen — he must have been crying. Harry flushed and sweating, sitting shirtless — probably because he’s running hot.

“Kim, I…”

“I didn’t come here to hear you explain yourself. I came to get you sober,” Kim states firmly. He came across the city for Harry, and he’ll help him, but he’ll be damned if he’s enabling him by buying into his narrative.

His eyes fasten on it, then: Harry’s Villiers 9mm pistol sitting next to the couch on the side table.

The door was open so no one would have to break it down.

He’s caught dumb and breathless wondering how close things have come, tonight. 

_He remembers the young woman from the Whirling-In-Rags’ troubled voice carried through the Kineema’s radio, speaking of Harry and Harry’s gun, the morning air cold._

_“You were waving it around in everyone’s face, begging them to describe it. You said it ‘calms you’. And then you started making suicide jokes. It got pretty_ graphic _.”_

_And Harry, still deeply disoriented, voice disengaged, speaking from that distance, as if looking in on himself from somewhere outside:_

_“I should have killed myself…”_

_“No, please, no more suicide threats! Thank_ god _you don’t have that stupid gun anymore.”_

He’s known Harry has been miserable, of course. Even if Harry has been putting on a brave front for many of their conversations, he hasn’t hidden that things are difficult. But the man hasn’t spoken a word about harming himself. As vocal as he’d been in their first week together, Kim had assumed a present lack of ideation.

He considers the possibility it only asserts itself when he drinks.

Kim can’t hold on to his anger. He walks to the couch without looking at Harry. Right now, he can’t look at Harry. He has to check if the three shot pistol is loaded, a task that demands all his volition.

The gun is fully loaded, but then Harry always keeps it loaded.

He disarms the weapon, dropping the paper cartridges into his pocket. 

It doesn’t seem right to leave the gun where Harry can see it. Think about it.

“You have to rehydrate,” Kim says, gaze flickering over Harry. That’s true. He takes himself to the kitchen, setting the empty pistol on the counter. He busies himself retrieving a faceted glass from the mismatched glasses and cups in the kitchen cabinet and running the tap, his mind blank to the situation in the living room.

He feels himself becoming calm. He must be, of course. There are very many other things he would prefer to be, but none of them are possible.

He returns with the water, pressing it into Harry’s big hand – one hand of his own on the back of it, steadying, and the other insisting with the glass. He waits, patiently, for the man’s grip to firm, before stepping back to gaze down on him, waiting, again, now for him to drink.

After studying the water dumbly, Harry drinks.

Kim considers the fact that very little he does now will hold any meaning for Harry, considering the evidence of the sheer amount he’s imbibed.

“You’re extremely intoxicated,” he says, sticking to the facts. “The best thing for you to do will be to sleep this off. We can discuss it in the morning.”

Harry stops drinking, holding his half-empty glass in front of him, staring down dazed at the surface of its contents, again.

“You don’t believe in me.”

It follows that Kim, although not angry, sounds too cold.

Kim thinks of the desperate children he’s talked out of suicide, or tried to. It isn’t difficult to gentle himself, speaking in softer tones by requirement.

He still limits himself to the genuine on the possibility that Harry would intuitively know if he’s anything but:

“I believe that, at this moment, you’re still drunk. I believe you have a disease and are in the middle of a difficult recovery. I don’t believe this promises a permanent relapse unless you use it as an excuse to drink more.”

Consternation clouds Harry’s swollen face. He remains rapt on the water.

“So, you believe in me. I don’t believe in me.”

Harry’s rough voice sounds deadened and distanced.

“These thoughts will stop when you’ve sobered up, which, with the amount you drank, won’t be for some time.” Kim allows a pause for the words to sink in, and then, gently but authoritatively, says: “Finish your water, Harry.”

The prompting takes effect. Harry blinks through his bloodshot stupor and finishes his water.

Kim takes the cup and sets it on the floor. 

“Get up, now,” he says, still prompting kindly.

He places a steadying hand on the small of Harry’s fevered back and guides him to his bedroom, remaining as gentle and as confident as he has to be. He does what he can to shake out the unmade covers while Harry waits blearily beside him. He lets the man climb into his bed on his own.

He turns to leave.

Harry’s hand closes around his arm, big and meaty, easily encircling it. Kim’s heart leaps, an unmistakable lurch in his chest. A surge of neglected hormones.

“Kim. Thanks… I don’t—I don’t want to be…I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I chose to involve myself. Go to sleep.”

He exhales in relief as Harry’s grasp slacks, leaving his skin with the phantom heat of an alcohol-sweaty hand.

If nothing else, he’s confident Harry will be too sloppy drunk to remember anything his surprised face could have revealed, the bigger man already rolling onto his back, breathing heavy.

He waits the minute longer it takes for Harry to sink into slumber before undertaking rolling him back onto his side, able to momentarily reassume a clinical distance by focusing on the grim thought of Harry’s potential fate, otherwise. It’s a marvel that the smell of him and his unwashed sheets is so much less rank than in Martinaise, a mark of his truly horrific condition in early March.

The skin where Harry’s hand caught him still burns.

He turns out the light and returns to the living room to clean up, moving on to the kitchen to pour out the rest of the Pilsner and throw the four empty bottles, empty bottle of wine, and bag from Fritte in the trash.

After retrieving the water glass, refilling it, and setting it on the desk next to Harry’s bed, Kim leaves Harry to his sleep.

Kim has stayed over late before, but always caught a bus. He has further to walk, but the overnight line runs close enough to their separate apartments to only make his return inconvenient rather than impractical.

It will be his first time sleeping on the couch, a trespass he would deeply prefer not to make.

There’s a single last order of business.

His hands only begin to shake once he holds the unloaded gun in his hand, cold adrenaline rushing through him. He takes a dizzy moment to recoup. The chaos of his thoughts refuses to resolve. He came unfathomably close to losing someone precious to him. Again.

In the living room, he slides the firearm beneath the long, unappealing sofa with its sunken cushions. He unloads his own gun, as well, only for personal safety’s sake, before sliding it back into its holster.

With a grimace, he goes to turn off the light and then takes his place in the dark.

The couch smells of aged leather and Harry’s cologne. He won’t remove his jacket for a pillow and leave his own gun exposed. Harry could never take it from him, but he won’t gamble with putting those thoughts back in his head if Harry wakes before he does. He can’t conscientiously take it off and have another firearm lying around. 

It’s just another layer of discomfort to what will be an awful sleep.

Kim can’t take off his boots, or his feet will definitely get cold. He refuses to go and search the hall closet for a blanket. As close as they may be, it reeks of presumption and overfamiliarity.

Trying to find sleep on the sagging sofa, he’s left alone in the dark with two inescapable facts: Harry relapsed, and relapsed hard, and Kim can’t remember a time he’s longed to share a bed with a man more painfully than tonight.

Under the circumstances, the fact bewilders him. Harry drunk and apologetic, flushed and sweating as his ailing liver struggles to alleviate his suffering, in no way attracts him. But he fiercely wants to hold on to him. He wants to be naked, skin to skin, in a swampy, uncomfortable bed, because Harry’s bed is where he’s wanted to be for longer than he’s been conscious of the fact and on the slim chance that it would matter to Harry’s recovery.

For all the strength of that irrational urge, Kim has no illusions. It’s not acceptable to pursue a relationship out of the hope of changing someone – Vicquemare’s heterosexual bond is proof enough that displays of unflagging fidelity run the risk of enabling Harry. It’s a single aspect of the entire constellation of reasons Kim will not pursue a relationship with Harry Du Bois, not under any circumstances.

The sleep that eventually finds him is troubled and restless.

\----

**Saturday, 10 April ‘51**

Kim opens his eyes to clear eyesight in a dim room, the dawn light a pale blue glow through closed curtains, and realizes he had been too preoccupied to remember to take off his glasses. Despite the uncomfortable position he took on an inconveniently uncomfortable couch, they at least remain intact.

He checks his watch.

6:07.

There’s a spike of pressure in his back that finds no immediate relief in sitting up and cracking it. He reaches up beneath his jacket to dig his fingers into and rub at the vertebrae of his spine. He’d rather blame it on the couch and on sleeping fully clothed than blame it on his age, except that he wakes up in some kind of discomfort more often than not.

6:08.

He has too much time on his hands.

He reaches under the couch to produce Harry’s pepperbox pistol with a wave of relief that the piece remained there through the night, however unlikely that Harry could have found and moved it. He runs his thumb across the engraving: _Sunrise, Parabellum!_

Queasy and restless, Kim sets the sidearm back on the side table.

Whatever he’d rather do with it – he can’t say he’s entirely sure what that is – the thing is harmless, now.

He reloads his own firearm.

6:13.

After weighing ‘I’d rather not’ against the fact Harry would invite him to, he chooses to pursue the contents of Harry’s refrigerator and to make himself a sandwich, even if only from bread and cheese. Adding irritable hunger to the situation would make things even worse.

He leans against the counter of the narrow kitchen and eats, having no desire to return to the living room.

The night races through his head on repeat, fragmented and disturbing.

Harry’s voice on the phone. The gun. The hand encircling his arm. The stench of liquor on Harry and the sweat. Kim’s own fear. Desire, hot and reckless.

The bread tastes stale.

Kim remains leaning against the counter, arms wrapped loosely around his waist, long after he finishes eating, his brow narrowed, and his eyes fixed on the linoleum floor.

He needs his composure, and all of it. He wants something entirely different: to be as emotional as anyone might be when the man he loves almost paints his apartment gory red with his own brains.

He’s fortunate that his job has prepared him to maintain his composure at the expense of all else, and countless times at his own expense in particular.

He uses the bathroom, located off the short hallway. It’s truly as horrific as Harry first implied, a noxious room overtaken by creeping black mold — crawling up the cracks and across the tiles even though he’s sure Harry’s worked on scrubbing it back at least once. Stubble from Harry’s shaving peppers the sink.

Kim washes his face with cold water. It fails to make up for the lack of sleep. In the mirror, he looks pinched. Exhausted. Old, he thinks, again. Forty-three shouldn’t be, but though he doesn’t wear the hard miles like Harry the ghettos of Revachol spare no one harsh treatment.

His parents’ execution, living in poverty with his father’s cousin, the prejudice, mockery of his bottle glasses, a furtive sex life, the inability to be promoted from a job he hated for fifteen years, and all the things he’s seen as a homicide detective since he finally received his promotion. None of it lends itself to preserving his youth.

He returns to the living room.

6:53.

He turns the light on and picks a book off Harry’s makeshift shelf, but he can’t focus on the text. He replaces it and goes to the window, opening the curtains to look out over the trash strewn street with its early morning civilian traffic, both those off to work and the homeless shuffling toward their panhandling spots.

He pushes a hand through his thinning hair. He still doesn’t know what he intends to say to Harry.

He pulls the curtains closed when he hears the man moving in the bedroom. He decides to wait at the window, hands habitually folded behind his back. He’d prefer to greet him eye to eye.

A few minutes pass and, after his own stop by the bathroom, Harry comes into the living room, cringing at the light of the ceiling’s uncovered electric bulb. He looks, although not as bad as he ever has, bad enough with glazed, hungover, bloodshot eyes, damp skin with its rosacea aggravated by dilated blood vessels, and his unwashed hair disheveled from the past hours’ sleep.

“Morning,” he rumbles in that gravel voice, still squinting at Kim through the light. He looks down at himself. Kim feels for him. It’s not good.

“I’m sure you need more water,” Kim says, in motion, already, relieved to have something useful to assign himself.

_He remembers Harry reading his ledger one moment – not his ledger, itself, but a letter he jimmied out of a compartment in the back. This strange man he’d been beside since yesterday morning suddenly looked unwell. Not only did he look unwell: he collapsed, limp all at once, ledger falling from his hands, body a heap on the ground._

_Kim checked his pulse (fast) then checked his pupils (huge and black, but he used amphetamines – a fact he had confessed to, unprompted)._

_The closest emergency vehicle was Kim’s own Kineema. That meant carrying the bulky bastard the whole way there. He focused on the resentment in place of the anxiety. He could admit he liked the man, however stunning his words and actions. The man was also an unrepentant reprobate and now very probably trying to have a heart attack and Kim had a murder investigation underway with many more lives than this the line._

_But Harry was his half-brother. Kim hadn’t for a moment considered leaving him._

_Harry was also, it was resolved, once Kim had the man in the back of the Kineema, extremely dehydrated. He had subsisted on nothing but alcohol for days. Kim was lucky to ID it through the reduced elasticity of his skin before leaving for the hospital._

Harry looks and sounds genuinely grateful for the water. It puts Kim at ease, reminding him how far they are from Martinaise and how he hasn’t appeared to have compounded his drinking with any additional substance abuse. He also asked for help instead of indulging his worst impulses.

“The couch?” Kim supposes. Sitting on the couch won’t be as awful as lying on the couch. He hadn’t even considered the couch so awful until he woke up this morning.

Even knowing it’s unloaded, he sits between Harry and the gun.

Harry grimaces a smile, self-aware, abashed and apologetic. He takes another sip of the water.

“Feels like hell.”

Kim picks the sidearm up off the end table, turning it over in his hands before he looks to Harry.

“Detective, would you prefer I remove the firearm from the apartment?”

At first gazing blankly at the pistol, Harry’s vision resolves. He exhales acceptance. Looking over the gun he visibly puzzles through what to say before he meets Kim’s eyes.

“It got heavy there for a minute but I’m okay, Kim.”

Kim holds his gaze until he’s measured it to be unflinching. He takes a second look at the gun and then offers it to Harry.

“It’s unloaded,” he says, sounding calm when he feels so unsteady.

“I’d figure. Is it too soon to say, ‘Don’t worry’?” Rhetorical. “I only really thought about it for a couple minutes. Then it just felt good to have it there. I—” Harry’s jaw clenches shut. “Don’t wanna say anything that scares you.”

Harry lets the gun rest in his lap, one hand half-covering it.

“If talking about it helps you, I want you to tell me. If it makes things worse, then don’t.”

Seeing the torture in Harry’s divided expression, in his bloodshot green eyes, Kim slips his glove off and reaches out, sliding hand onto Harry’s broad shoulder and letting it rest there.

The man has responded well to such gestures in the past. Indeed, Harry’s knotted muscles slowly unknit under Kim’s hand.

“It’s a lot of work keeping it to myself,” he says, guttural. It takes him another minute to order his thoughts. “It’s worse when it feels like… a secret way out. That’s what it felt like. An exit plan just for me, if things get real bad.” His hand closes tight around the gun. “When it’s bad I get this feeling like there’s an itch I can’t scratch, right inside my skull, and I only know one way to reach it.” Now Kim’s hand is moving in slow circles on his back, his thumb making its own comforting strokes, as if that could stave off this reality for either of them. Harry concludes: “If I’m sober, I can deal with it.”

He grinds out the last words with a ferocious, stunning certainty that leaves Kim breathless with the fact that this ideation has occurred repeatedly without his own knowledge and separate from any substance abuse.

He grapples with what to do with the knowledge. He’s spoken with those suicidal teenagers, successfully and unsuccessfully, and been called to the scene of suicides, and of murder-suicides, and thought _Tragic_ from what he sees now that it’s someone so near to him was a great distance from the edge of the abyss.

His hand continues to move on Harry’s back, as much about maintaining his own sense of connection to the the present as about consoling his friend. Both are necessary.

It takes time, but he reaches his conclusion: Harry needs a gun to do his job. It also follows that if he didn’t have one then he’d find another way. 

“I have to tell him that you drank, but I’m not going to tell Pryce about this.”

Professional codes of conduct lie beyond present consideration. It’s no secret Harry has threatened suicide in the past. Kim sees no point in further emphasizing Harry’s suicidality unless he’s making a case to cut him from the force. Why would he do that when Harry losing his job is the biggest risk to Harry harming himself that Kim can imagine?

It slots together neatly in a way that warns Kim he’s incurring trauma of his own even as he thinks, a routine part of the life he’s chosen.

The urge to hold Harry that gripped him in the night returns in force. He allows his thumb another slow stroke over Harry’s scapula, assuring himself of the man’s heat and physical presence. He hopes Harry doesn’t confuse the emotions he provokes with pity — not when Harry needs all his fraying self-confidence.

His fingertips flinch tighter against Harry’s back.

“Are you keeping any other ‘secrets’ in the apartment, Harry?”

Kim knows immediately from the way Harry’s breath picks up that he is. Harry starts to speak and shuts his mouth before there’s a sound. Kim can see the battle being waged behind his friend’s eyes, the gun forgotten in his hands.

“Officer,” he prompts.

Harry looks at him, pained.

If he’ll be offering an answer, it won’t be any time soon.

 _What,_ Kim forces himself to ask himself, _would I be hiding in my apartment if I were Harry Du Bois? What,_ the careful mental articulation feels entirely foreign, _would I be unwilling to give up?_

Kim’s shoulders slump, Kim weary with more than lack of sleep.

“Where is the rest of the alcohol?”

He doesn’t wait for Harry to answer, getting up to go search the kitchen.

Kim opens cabinet after cabinet, leaving the doors hanging wide. He expected to find it among the trash bags and cleaning supplies under the sink, the most appropriate place he can imagine, but instead he finds a bottle of Commodore Red behind the coffee and dry goods.

Having felt the cork rattling around inside the empty bottle, he intuits the purpose of the ballpoint pen on the counter, makes use of it, and pours the dark red liquid down the drain, the air sharp with intoxicant, the bottle chugging.

At the entryway to the kitchen, Harry groans. Kim refuses to look at him, but in his mind’s eye he can see him, despite it: eyes closed, slouched and miserable. As close to the drain as Kim holds the bottle, the reek of it must still be maddening.

He deposits The bottle with the rest of the detritus in the trash can. He makes a mental note to take the whole bag out to the dumpster and not leave the trash can smelling of beer and wine as a reminder.

He turns his attention to Harry.

“That was all of it?” he asks. From the depth of relief written all across Harry’s features he knows it is, but he wants to hear him say it.

“That’s all. I’m not holding on to anything else. Just cigarettes.”

“Khm. We’re making progress,” Kim says. He’s exhausted, but he can already feel himself relaxing.

The dark mood begins to clear from the air. No loaded guns, no loaded bottles.

Harry digs into his pocket to take out a crushed package of cigarettes. He grabs a black lighter off the counter and lights one, slouching back against the wall again and taking a drag.

Kim gives him his moment and a little space, even if that means he can’t make his way back to the living room, yet.

Harry wets his lips.

“I miss my tie, Kim. He was a good dude.”

Kim has no idea what he would have guessed might come out of Harry’s mouth next, but it was not this.

“Detective, you don’t really think…”

He thinks back to their conversation beneath the Feld building.

_”And what has the necktie been telling you, if I may ask?”_

_“We’re buds. Mostly just goofing around.”_

Maybe it gave him some measure of comfort, that imaginary friend, but surely he knows the neck tie itself has never _actually_ spoken to him.

“Think about how he went out. He told me to buy that pure alcohol for later. After Ruby split on us, he instructed me on how to make an improvised incendiary weapon. He made sure I prepped it before we walked up on the tribunal. Call him the part of my subconscious that had my back.”

Kim will simply have to endure his own deep discomfort at the para-natural elements of these events.

“I wouldn’t believe you if you hadn’t told me as much as you did before the tribunal,” he says. “The results are difficult to argue with.”

“Joopson AS Men’s Fashion number J327. Think he was from Graad,” Harry rumbles to himself. “Used to call me ‘bratan’.”

He exhales a plume of smoke.

Kim’s brow knits so tightly he can feel the muscles of his brows pressed together. He spends a moment struggling with this information.

“I believe I understand. Circumstances have been made more difficult by… the absence of your former support structure.”

Not that the tie had prevented him from doing himself serious harm.

“I’m actually kind of building up to something else,” Harry says, straightening up to reach out and ash his cigarette over the trash can.

“Then perhaps we should go to the living room,” Kim says. He’s beginning to feel trapped at the back of the kitchenette, placed so far outside his comfort zone.

Harry glances him over. Kim’s sure he can’t hide it from him.

“Right. Sorry.”

Harry steps out to go and take a seat on the couch.

Kim stands apart with his arms folded, the tension in him easing again now that he’s more confidently situated.

“What is it you have to tell me?” he asks. It’s easier to invite it than to wait in silence when he isn’t going to like it.

By now he’s aware they’re going to be late for work, but the reasons will be obvious enough to buy leeway. Getting Harry to work sober will look like enough of an accomplishment.

“It’s not just the tie, Kim,” Harry says. Kim’s stomach drops. “There’s voices. All the time. A lot of them, too, but they’re easy to tell apart. Thing is, I think they may‘ve always been with me. I just don’t know how to ask Jean, or if I’d’ve told him.”

Kim adjusts his glasses, for a moment looking anywhere but Harry before he martials himself to focus.

Harry is there on the couch: physical, solid, real — but what he’s saying is too much.

“I’m not sure what to say. These voices…”

His friend looks sympathetic. Kim feels it should be the other way around, but he’s been distinctly unsettled.

“I thought you should know. A lot of the time, they’re on my side. They help me out. Help me notice things I wouldn’t otherwise. They’re what do the… remote viewing.” The pause. Because he knew Kim wouldn’t like it. Kim doesn’t. Then: “Some of them, though, they’re not all bad but they’re a nuisance.”

Kim tries to make sense of the information he’s receiving.

“Are you trying to tell me these ‘voices’ made you drink?”

“No. They can’t make me do anything, Kim.”

He says it as if it’s so obvious Kim needn’t have asked. 

Kim feels as if they’re truly in tangentially intersecting dimensions.

“So, you would like me, at some point, to ask Jean if you’ve ever confided in him about hearing voices?”

“That’s the one.”

Kim has to regain control of this situation, and regain his own equilibrium.

“Detective, I hope we agree this is a step in assessing if your condition requires medication.”

Harry presses his lips together, but after a pause he relents, nodding concession.

“I guess I might be wondering that, myself.”

Kim further firms his voice.

“Good. Now, take a shower. I can’t leave you here to be depressed. We’re going to work. Don’t worry,” he adds. “You can do inventory.”

Although he first looked concerned, Harry appears satisfied with that. He picks himself up off the couch and heads to his room to retrieve his clothing.

 _Voices,_ Kim’s mind spins on repeat. _He hears voices_ and sometimes _’Remote viewing’._

It’s a cold shock to the system, thinking Harry might really be completely insane.

He can’t be, completely, of course. Or, if he is, he’s insane in a way that appears to give him extraordinary abilities. Even as Kim doubts and doublechecks himself, it’s hard to believe Harry’s premeditation is entirely a result of random guesses made by a brain on fire.

He’s too restless to wait on the couch.

\----

AUTHORITY: He has no reason to know about us.

HALF LIGHT: Now he thinks you’re crazy!

EMPATHY: He’s afraid for you, and of you.

PAIN THRESHOLD: You can survive his uncertainty.

DRAMA: You delivered the news as gently as you could, sire.

VOLITION: Would you really let them drug you?

COMPOSURE: It’s already difficult enough to do the work without removing further tools.

SUGGESTION: He can be convinced we’re for the better. If you’re patient.

“Are you really, though?” Harry mutters under the white noise of the shower as he lathers his sweat-matted body hair and rinses the stench of alcohol off him.

His head aches, his eyes burn, he’s nauseous, and even underneath the water his skin feels hot and dry. Right now, he can think of at least one certain someone he could do without.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Don’t blame _me_ things went south last night. I just wanted you to have a good time!

The only good news is the vise-like pressure in his head has vanished, for now. His thoughts are clearer than they’ve been since Martinaise..

He wishes the conversation hadn’t needed to be had. It hurt to see Kim at loose ends, disorientated and discomforted. It’s important to him to be somebody Kim respects. Somebody he can be proud of.

RHETORIC: Having him ask Jean is better than Jean learning you’re hearing voices for the first time from you.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Whether or not he’s taken unaware both he and Lieutenant Kitsuragi will feel a greater sense of control over this situation being able to discuss it together, without you.

Harry turns off the shower and hastily dresses, pulling a comb through his hair and straightening his ordinary tie in front of a mirror that tells him he looks god awful and couldn’t fool anyone at Precinct 41 if he wanted to, even if they didn’t all already know the signs.

He gets his holster and jacket on and heads back into the living room to holster his unloaded pistol. He’ll reload it, later, but he won’t make Kim watch him.

INLAND EMPIRE: You told him the secret. It isn’t yours anymore. It’s his, now. You’re making him keep it.

PAIN THRESHOLD: The itch hasn’t stopped. It isn’t going away. You’ll never scratch it like this. There has to be a way to scratch it…

“Let’s go,” Kim says with an impatient glance at his wristwatch. “You can get breakfast in Central Jamrock.”

“Not even sure I could hold it down,” Harry says.

Kim removes the trash bag of empty bottles from the trash bin, ties it off, and then heads for the door.

Harry follows him out of the apartment, Kim half a head shorter than Harry but a size larger than life in his air brigade gear.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: He trusts you. He’s counting on you to hold it together today.

He’s known the man for a month, and in that month — in many ways, the only month of his life — he’s spent a lot of his time with him, but more about Kim still remains a mystery to him.

Mostly, he has no idea why Kim chooses to spend _his_ time with him, or spend any effort on him.

Sure, Kim’s isolated. He’s pieced together enough to know that between Kim having told him since Martinaise that he didn’t have a partner at the 57th and his sadness in speaking about his old partner, “Eyes,” that something pretty bad happened and it wasn’t too long ago. And it’s obvious that Kim had had trouble making friends at the 57th.

EMPATHY: He assumes people are especially critical of or are making fun of him due to childhood experiences, and sometimes because they are.

—the question is why this retreating guy would let _him_ in in particular.

INLAND EMPIRE: A madman.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: An addict.

COMPOSURE: Emotionally unstable.

PAIN THRESHOLD: A suicide risk.

There’s no good reason, so it has to be an irrational one. 

Whatever it is, Kim has it locked up tight. He may have become increasingly willing to suffer embarrassment by allowing Harry to see the more human side of him — when they first met the man could barely stand for him to know his favorite radio station, avoiding Harry’s gaze with his ears burning — but some things are still so off the table they’re not even in sight.

CONCEPTUALIZATION: You can’t know what it is you don’t expect.

ENDURANCE: You’ve also been constantly preoccupied by the physical difficulties of withdrawal. And now, you have a hangover.

Standing beside Kim at the bus stop in the reeking morning air, Harry lets himself glance over the man, gaze drifting idly from his paratrooper boots, laced tight at his feet and increasingly loosely until the shoelaces hang untied, up his body, most of it obscured except for his narrow waist and slim wrists and the warm toned skin revealed by his deep v-neck, and to study the side of his dutifully expressionless face, careworn but years younger than Harry’s own, mustache and round glasses and dark hair.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: We can negotiate. You don’t have to pick up a new brand of drug. There’s other ways to keep your head straight. Sex.

SUGGESTION: There’s no indication Kim wants to have sex with you.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Lieutenant Kitsuragi would consider such behavior _unprofessional_.

INLAND EMPIRE: He’s beautiful. A galaxy. There’s so much of him left to explore.

INTERFACING: It would be easy to slide his open jacket over his shoulders, trapping his arms behind his back.

“Officer,” Kim says, sounding intensely bored as he finally slides his gaze to the side.

COMPOSURE: Your face suffuses with heat.

LOGIC: You’re so flushed it’s probably not noticeable.

DRAMA: You have enough reasons to be looking at him. 

RHETORIC: You just had a difficult conversation.

“Khm. I…” Harry knows what he needs to say, except for the distracting pain of the headache. “...I’m just wondering if we’re okay.”

Kim closes his eyes with a nasal exhalation.

“Please try to consider the extent you’ve impressed upon me.”

EMPATHY: He found you drunk and suicidal and he doesn’t know if you’re insane.

“Not okay, then. Got it,” Harry says, flashing a grin Kim doesn’t see. “I’ll back off a while.”

“Please don’t think I don’t care,” Kim says in a caution tinged voice. “I hope I’ve made it apparent I do.”

“You did. Kim, you came through for me. Even if you need a few days, I’ll be fine,” Harry says, hearing himself mean it. 

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: The drink did great things for you.

PAIN THRESHOLD: The hangover is more bearable than the mental compression.

VOLITION: No more beer. No wine. No liquor. You hurt the person you care about, like you hurt the others who came before him.

The bus that will take them to the 41st pulls up to the curb with a squeal of brakes and choke of fumes, its big lorry engine rumbling. 

Harry climbs on behind Kim determined to have an event free day.

Except for about three times he almost succeeds.

\----

**Sunday, 11 April ‘51**

Kim sets his phone back on the receiver possessed with the same unflagging uneasiness that’s plagued him since yesterday morning when Harry’s confessions turned his world sideways.

If he didn’t place this call last night, it was to allow himself leeway.

He was suspicious of his own actions before he ever left a message at the Whirling-in-Rags, and more so now that he has. He can’t be confident he’s making a clear headed decision.

Except Martinaise is outside the grasp of the RCM, and Boogie Street is within his own jurisdiction, now. It’s no longer a place to disappear to. His fellow officers of the 41st might encounter him there. The fact some may have already seen him there already in times past doesn’t justify going cruising.

Where else can he step outside his life?

There remains the possibility of a different kind of relief.

There’s every chance Titus Hardie won’t receive the message, or won’t return his call.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Image in this chapter is **NSFW** )

**Tuesday, 13 April ‘51**

The traffic thins out as the bus pulls off the 8/81 onto the road north toward Martinaise. The vehicle itself is marginally crowded, a few seats left empty but some passengers choosing not to sit.

Kim has taken a seat, this ride, the bus jostling along underneath him. It lurches over some unknown depression. Kim wonders if Evrart will be paying for road repairs to keep the lorries moving without funding from Wild Pines. In the absence of a municipal government, who can he weasel into shouldering that debt?

He intends to leave any thoughts of Evrart’s business aside. If there’s going to be an investigation into the industrial scale chemicals trade conducted from Terminal B, it will fall under the 57th’s jurisdiction. He is no longer an officer of the 57th. 

It’s not laudable of him, but neither were the actions he already took.

As poorly as he thinks of Evrart and his dealings, he worked for him, himself. Putting a fright in the fascist, Gary, became justifiable ex post facto — never legally but morally. Kim no longer gave a shit. Except, they could have been opening anyone’s door at the time. Harry forged the signatures on the letter Evrart wanted signed, but they had considered the possibility of collecting them from the women in Illisible. They nonetheless left a legal fight ahead for the women for the sake of expedience.

If he and Harry accepted Evrart’s grasp on Martinaise as an irresistible fact to get through their work week, he can’t imagine living there.

It’s a bleak reality counterposed to the easy way Titus Hardie has about him.

Titus returned his call Sunday evening.

The bell ringing inside his phone put immediate tension in him at the thought Harry could be calling him despite promising him space to decompress. Even now he feels ill at the thought of what he walked into, and how much more there is to face. But his _Hello?_ was thankfully met by a Vespertine drawl.

_”Kim Kitsuragi, huh.”_

_“Titus.”_

_“That what I should call you?”_

_“You can call me ‘sir.’”_

_“Oh, he’s got a sense of humor, now.”_

_Leaving his name and number with the bartender had been enough. Realistically, how many other people of Seolite descent would be leaving Titus messages at the hostel?_

_“I’m sure I don’t mind you using my given name,” Kim says at the same time he realizes he hasn’t put enough thought into it._

_“You mind a little.”_

_“That’s true about more than my name.”_

_“How about Tuesday?”_

_His thoughts pivot from everything else Titus is, like smart mouthed and working for a mob boss, to immediately arousing memories of his skin._

_“Tuesday…” He has work Wednesday morning, but that’s not a dealbreaker. “How late is the last bus?”_

_“Ten o’clock,” Titus says. “But I’ve got this thing called a bed and you’re not paying by the hour.”_

_It’s unfortunate that the exact reason he fastened on the idea of Martinaise, that to the rest of Revachol it’s nowhere, is the reason it’s one of the places that’s seen bus service cuts. He might make it out before ten o’clock and he might not._

_He’s fallen asleep at exactly one apartment since his last boyfriend broke up with him. On the other hand, hanging up on Titus means cruising away from Boogie Street. Probably fucking a lorry driver he’s never met who he’ll never see again. Somewhere along the way he grew too old for that to be exciting._

_He’ll have to put together an act, be anyone but himself, and keep it up the whole encounter. Right now, that sounds exhausting._

_“Khm. If I did stay, and I needed to leave in the morning?”_

_“Six AM.”_

_Early enough to avoid having breakfast. His apartment is reasonably close._

_“I could make it work.”_

_That simple concession infinitely simplifies the conversation, shifting his approach to brisk and purposeful._

_“What time you think you’ll get here?” Titus asks, his teasing way of drawing him out giving way to his own focused intent._

_Kim supposes he’ll have to return home, eat, shower and change._

_“At the earliest? Around seven thirty. Eight.”_

_“I’ll meet you at the bus stop.”_

_It gives Kim pause._

_“That isn’t necessary.”_

_“It isn’t, but I want to.”_

_There’s no point in arguing. It’s simpler than finding his way to Titus’ home on his own. If there’s any misunderstandings, Kim can disabuse him of them later. He arranges to leave a message at the Whirling if he thinks he can’t make it and says his goodbye._

\----

Titus has been leaning against the glass and metal hut of the bus stop for about twenty minutes.

The stop is situated at the far end of the bridge out of Martinaise. It serves Illisible and the near part of the Pox, too, although those places barely have anybody left to ride the bus. 

Martinaise has held steady. Work at the harbor is lucrative enough to draw in fresh blood. There’s a school, and since the Claires took over the Union it’s even got funding behind it. They love gestures toward the community that keep it grateful enough to keep them in the money.

Another upshot is unlike other nearby communities, narcotics related crime is rare on account of the odds of catching a summary execution. 

Crimes like property theft are a little trickier. Mostly the Hardies re-appropriate the stolen goods. Sometimes, after the first warning, somebody caught in the act catches a fist.

It’s mostly kids. You can’t go around laying out every teenage delinquent. Kids do dumb shit. Maybe you shake them down for weapons and shove them around a little so they don’t grow up into criminals.

It’s a small enough town that, for the most part, everybody hears everything. The Claires hear more than anybody. That keeps crimes from getting too ambitious.

Besides acting otherwise being damn well impolite, it also has something to do with Titus hanging out big and obvious waiting for the bus. It says if anybody has questions about what he’s doing having a cop out to Martinaise, they’re welcome to ask. 

Even if folks have a pretty positive opinion of Kim, as positive as anybody’s opinion of an RCM officer gets, it’s getting harder to bury the fact of saboteurs buzzing around the harbor like gnats. Contract negotiations with clients have moved out of the shadows and into the open. Not all of them are going so well. Like most people, Titus has nothing to do with those, but the atmosphere is hostile to the Moralintern.

When he saw the Seolite name above the phone number on the napkin Ginette handed him — _Said you should call him_ — what he remembered was that last, unexpected and suddenly personal kiss. It’s a more convincing assurance of honest intentions than he has from any of his new recruits. He can’t live his whole life paranoid.

It’s eight-o-five and the bus finally pulls up. 

Glasses’, or Kim’s, outfit has slimmed down by a lot. He’s still in a military jacket, dark green, now, with pockets to spare, but this one fits tight. His pants are a few shades off it, cut just right to remind Titus how slim those hips are. The driver’s gloves are off, there’s just long, fine fingers and a wristwatch around one thin wrist.

His smile gets wide and friendly as every other consideration disappears into the fact he’s getting laid. He straightens out of his lean and steps forward to meet Kim.

“You look good.”

The man is back to the same attitude of effortless cool as when Titus first flirted him up at the bar. 

“You’re only thinking about getting my clothes off.”

“You’re not wrong,” Titus says — sure he wants what’s under that —“but you look good.”

They fall into step heading across the bridge into Martinaise. It’s turning into summer and it’s still daylight, although not for much longer. They’ll pass through the commercial center of the suburb and on down into the rows of pre-war houses, in various states of repair and disrepair, set off from the sidewalk by a low concrete wall topped with a long-rusted wrought iron fence. 

Titus is renting a two bedroom place, or maybe he owns it now. The strike started putting ideas in people’s heads like _Who, exactly, is coming to evict us?_ and he hasn’t paid rent in two months. He’s kept the old house in one piece on his own initiative for years after he got sick of waiting around on the landlord.

He glances at the man walking beside him.

The house isn’t going to impress on its own merits, so he figures he needs to cover his bases.

“Wanna stop by a hole in the wall, grab a bite? Nobody’s gonna bother us.”

Kim shakes his head.

“I ate before I caught the bus.” A pause, and then: “You didn’t eat, did you?

Titus rubs his chin, counting back the hours.

“Not since a while ago.” He let himself get hungry on the misconception Kim would let him buy him something light. “It’s fine, there’s food at home.”

“I didn’t think I was coming on a date,” Kim says.

Titus grins, playful. Alright, he’s been caught thinking it’s more like a date than not. That’s not his fault.

“I’m a heterosexual. I’ve only ever hooked up with women. They’ve got a lot of expectations. Mostly about how deep your wallet is.”

Kim side eyes him.

“You believed I would have the same expectations?”

It’s the chill that goes through him on the receiving end of that penetrating gaze that helps Titus spot that nest of hornets for what it is.

“I don’t for a minute think you’re a woman.”

That’s the truth. Kim’s made of sharp, hard edges in a way his women aren’t, and not just the firm body under the military greens.

“As long as that remains clear,” Kim says, sounding a lot less ominous.

Kim takes interest in their surroundings as they pass through the roundabout with its busted up statue of Filippe III. For a minute they’re quiet. Martinaise isn’t much to look at, but there’s a lot more going on now that people can move freely through the streets without squeezing through a makeshift village of trapped lorries. Once you get past the bombed out ruins on the west side of the plaza, there’s some decent architecture. People make a living, here. There’s a barber, a food mart, the pawn shop. They’ve got the hardware store Tibbs works out of and Darla, the seamstress, runs a second hand clothing store. Throw in a couple restaurants, a fuel station with an adjacent motor parts store to service the lorries, and the bookstore back by the Whirling and Martinaise gets by.

Nobody would come out here without a reason, but it’s enough for the locals.

As they move out of the commercial center and into the neighborhood, Titus finds himself with a thank you on his hands he doesn’t exactly know how to share. He hasn’t asked as many questions as he could have, but then it didn’t seem like his business. It’s only now that he has Kim here with him that he can see a gap in the big picture. Maybe the kind of gap it’s better not to look at too close. 

Doesn’t mean they can’t catch up.

“I’ve been rounding some more boys up. Think I’ve got a pretty good mix. Don’t know if all of them’ll stick but how much can you do in a month?” he says. “Damndest thing, though. Had Ruby show up about a week after you split. Said you let her off the hook.”

Kim seems amiable enough to the topic of conversation, or at least he doesn’t seem hostile.

“Once we spoke with her, it became obvious to us that Klaasje framed her,” he says. “We had enough reasons to arrest her, of course, given the contents of the lorry at the roundabout that was later unfortunately looted...”

There it is. The hole. 

Titus isn’t gonna poke it. Whatever set Ruby free, from his silence on it Kim doesn’t think it’s his business to share. Titus will have to work it out with himself whether to bring it up with Ruby, later.

“Heard a couple of thugs broke into that lorry,” Titus segues. “Big sweaty guy, high as balls. Smaller guy in a bomber jacket. Smashed the window in broad daylight. You oughta ask them about it.”

Kim keeps a straight face.

“I’ll make a report.”

“Point is, you didn’t arrest her, and you kept the cuffs off the suspect in Room 3. When you’d said you heard me about laying off, I didn’t believe you for a second. Thought I’d have to whack you or let you take her.”

“Considering I’m an officer of the RCM, it would be inappropriate to comment.”

“That’s all I’ve got to say about it,” Titus says.

He’s damn well not going to say _Thanks for not doing your job_ and Kim wouldn’t say _You’re welcome_ , but it’s as close it gets.

Kim collects himself before measuring out his own news.

“Certain things have changed. I’ve transferred to the 41st precinct.”

Titus holds himself back from something he’d get heat for, like punching the air. He’d wondered. Now he knows Kim’s not going to come around asking about large volume shipments from Samara moving through Terminal B.

“That’s the best news my dick’s heard in weeks,” he says, the smug bleeding through.

“Don’t mistake it for condoning activities I don’t.” 

Kim sounds like somebody exploring the limits of their patience.

“Only thing you gotta condone is anal.”

A hum of agreement beside him.

“I consider myself an enthusiast, depending on position and current inclination.”

Titus squints his way.

“Damn. You really don’t blush.”

The RCM officer slides him a cool smile.

“Now that you know, you don’t have to keep trying.”

They’re not too far from the house, now, a few blocks into the neighborhood of little houses just like it. Titus feels a weight off. Any politics standing between him and fucking this guy are ones he can afford to ignore.

\----

Kim knew opening up conversation with Titus would take some turns. He feels like a man who found a safe path through a minefield.

Thankfully Titus didn’t want to dig too deep into the implications of Kim’s transfer. What Ruby has or hasn’t told Titus is nothing to involve himself with. The actions he and Harry chose to take, or rather chose not to take in regard to Ruby and Klaasje are matters he’s already made his peace with. They sided with mercy. And, despite any initial confusion, he thinks he and Titus both understand this is a hook up, not a date.

The only thing he can’t wrap his head around as they stroll though what were once pleasant pre-war homes, now off-color and dilapidated, is Titus’ genuine-sounding belief he’s heterosexual.

It’s not unheard of for self-proclaimed heterosexual men to pick up men in the Boogie Street bars. It's much rarer to have one ask you out on what Titus would have been open to calling a date. 

It’s not that he didn’t hear Titus say he’d never picked a man up before, but he’s almost certain that at the Whirling his come on had implied _some_ bisexual experience. Kim had, at the time, assumed it had at least something to do with the fact he'd identified his blonde friend as queer.

After a moment with it he sees he has to let it go. He doesn’t like to make salacious speculations about other people’s sex lives. He has the huge longshoreman at his disposal. He wants to get their clothes off more than he cares what Titus calls himself.

Titus lives in a smaller specimen of the surrounding houses, its old stucco painted white and the brittle corpse of a branching vine spreading over its outer wall, awaiting removal. The tile roof is as chipped and battered as that of its neighbors. The wooden exterior shutters are fixed firmly square despite rusting hinges. 

They pass through the metal gate and cross a small front yard empty of flower bushes. They climb up a few concrete steps and Titus lets him into the house ahead of him.

It bears the marks of a pre-revolutionary home, tiled floors — by now in considerable disrepair, chips filled in with grout — and neatly segmented rooms. Kim can see into a dining area and a kitchen against the wall ahead.

Titus claps a big hand on Kim’s shoulder, gives him a smile and a shrug.

“Place is pretty much yours.”

Kim has little social precedent to operate off of as Titus heads into his kitchen, only asks, purely in order to cement the reality:

“You’re really going to eat?”

“I can’t pound you on an empty stomach,” Titus says back. 

Kim can be sure Harry would love to be left in the same situation. Kim himself feels distinctly uncomfortable at the idea of intruding on Titus’ home and only moves from the doorway when he registers how awkward it would be to be caught standing there.

Taking a bracing breath his eyes wander the room. There’s a couch with a side table holding a radio and assorted sports magazines and a smaller two seat couch set at a ninety degree angle.

The home is decorated in a busy way that suggests its contents have been accrued over some years. 

He detects a distinctly nautical inclination, the largest piece being a three meter long wooden oar fixed along the wall, but there’s a broken wooden piece of ship’s hull, a piece of old weighted fishing net, a big and brittle seven-armed starfish — found objects from the bay.

Words slip back from his and Harry’s conversation with the little man with the thick Ubi accent decorating the container yard in fresh Union livery.

_"Oh, Titus is a longshoreman through and through, he was born on a boat, they say. His veins are probably filled with saltwater I tell you, hehehe — nice friendly sort old Titus is."_

New thoughts follow from internalizing that information, like that Kim doesn’t know much about rowing clubs despite having worked at the bayside for five years, and the fact that Titus must be a tremendous swimmer.

“You want a beer?” Titus asks from the kitchen.

“I’m alright,” Kim says, loud enough to be head.

There’s also paraphernalia from the Martinaise Flaming Rhinos rugby team, and old awards from teams Titus probably played for himself. Inviting further inspection are the framed newspaper articles hung around the room.

Kim allows himself to be drawn in.

Titus comes out of the kitchen with a sandwich and a beer. Kim is too engrossed in his reading to chastise him for making an entire sandwich.

“You boxed professionally,” Kim observes.

“Used to be you couldn’t find a sport you’d keep me out of. Mostly stick to rowing, now. Still play some rugby when we can round up enough boys. Boxing, though, yeah, it helped pay the rent.

“I didn’t turn out to be Contact Mike,” Titus says, “but I won more than I lost. Maybe I would have tried my luck in the Old Old World, but my brother got serious, told me there’s no pension in boxing.” 

A nostalgic pause for a chance at a different future that disappeared a long time ago. It passes. 

“You into sports?” Titus asks, picking up his sandwich to bite into it.

“I’m an exceptional driver,” Kim admits. “Unfortunately, I only acquired my own sports MC a few years ago, and they frown on street racing in police livery.”

“That’s a bitch.”

“Yes. A ‘bitch.’”

Kim leaves the framed article of Titus’ win behind him and comes to sit down on the couch, eyeing the sandwich skeptically. There’s no apology from Titus’ quarter.

\----

Titus weighed what he can expect to get away with, based on what little he knows about Kim, and placed his bet the guy will only get so agitated by a short delay. They’re not young guys with raging hormones. They played things casual, before.

“The 41st, that’s where the coo-coo cop came out of, right?” Titus asks. He wasn’t taking notes, but he doubts it would ring a bell, otherwise.

“Yes. They needed additional personnel. I consented to join them.”

Something changed in Kim, not for the better, but Titus can’t put his finger on it. Suddenly the man became more professional, even though Kim was the one who brought up the transfer, before.

“How’s he doing, anyway?” Titus asks.

“He’s…” Kim’s brow creases. “I’m not interested in discussing it.”

“Damn. I liked that guy, too,” Titus squints at the colorful layers of his sandwich, debating leaving the subject at that. Except, the guy almost died for him. He glances at Kim. “Is he at least…?”

“He’s not in danger, Titus,” Kim says. 

It’s impossible to read anything off the guy, now. He’s shuttered off, but not in an angry or standoffish way. Titus tries to fit different emotions to it, like ‘sad’ or ‘tired.’ What he ends up deciding is Kim’s bluff is too expert to call.

“I didn’t actually come here to talk,” Kim says.

He rises from the couch after barely sitting and steps, unhurried, to stand between Titus’ splayed knees. Titus’ dick takes an immediate interest with a little lurch of pleasure. The rest of him is more skeptical. He deliberately takes another bite of his sandwich.

Hell if Kim isn’t serious, though, lowering himself to his knees on the hard tile and unfastening Titus’ jeans with practiced hands. Titus is still soft, big with lots of give, and his foreskin loose over him as Kim guides him out of his pants. He breathes in through his nose as Kim starts pulling at his dick and he takes a pause to knock back some beer.

It’d be great if he hadn’t committed to this eating thing, but his stomach is telling him it’s gonna be a distraction from Kim without some fuel up front. He tries to keep his head straight with the skin sliding easy over his thickening cock, arousal heating up. It’s working, as far as he’s making muddled progress despite his gaze fixed on Kim, on Kim’s calm expression and steady focus. 

His dick’s starting to fill out, weighty now and holding itself straight. He’s gotten in about two more bites of the sandwich and now Kim looks up at him.

“Wallet.”

Titus curses, but he reaches behind him, lifting his hips to pull the billfold out of his back pocket — Kim takes the opportunity to pull his jeans further down his narrow hips.

“Can’t even get a blowjob,” Titus complains, handing it over for Kim to rifle through until he produces a condom.

“I’m not enthusiastic about gonorrhea,” Kim says. “I’ve had that experience.”

Titus frowns.

“Wouldn’t I know if I had gonorrhea?”

The man between his knees looks up his body with infinite calm.

“The fact that you’re even asking that is why you’re wearing a condom.”

The wallet hits the floor and Kim strokes him full, thumbs down his foreskin, drawing a slow circle, and rolls the condom on despite his groan of complaint— it’s not exactly complaint. Titus gets another mouthful in. The whole food idea is losing steam. His mouth’s gone dry. 

He can’t even swallow because Kim tilts his head and drags his tongue over the thin rubber, up the cleft at the crown of his cock.

Kim gives the condom a disapproving look and raises his calm gaze to hold Titus’ eyes.

“...I want to taste you. It’s been years since anyone came down my throat.”

If Titus slams the sandwich down on the table next to him, well, now he’s choking. For a minute that’s all there is, the fact he inhaled and the struggle to find his beer to wash it down and get some air in him. 

He’s still coughing against the back of his hand and the bastard who tried to do him in has the biggest smile he’s seen on him, smirking like he’s so fucking clever. Titus can’t even get mad about it because the only thing on his mind is getting his cock in that smug mouth.

He takes a last drink of beer.

“ _Fuck_.”

That smirk plays coy, as if it’s not holding in laughter behind it. Kim wraps a hand around the base of his cock, still holding his eyes while he strokes.

“Now that I have your attention…”

Titus wants to see that mouth around his dick, but he closes his eyes to just feel him taking him, those lips closing around him to suck him in. Kim’s tongue’s already back at it, stroking searing hot and flat across the underside of the head. That heat’s so good the hand stroking the length of him almost doesn’t register, but it’s a great feeling, warmth over his whole cock. Kim’s not struggling with tackling the size of it.

It’s not a bad thing to recognize this guy has sucked a lot of dick.

He looks down at him just to meet his eyes. That’s a gut punch, a rush. Titus goes a little dizzy just passing through that, watching Kim’s eyes fall shut and more of his dick disappear into that mouth. The smooth motion of his hand and the bob of his head sync so well it’s pornographic, there’s just the occasional catch deep in Kim’s throat that says this might be kind of tough.

How long did it take Glen from that first drunken _Hey, lemmie suck your dick_ to a time when he was any good at it?

Titus’ sinks his body into the couch with a sigh, his breathing almost normal — he needs another sip of beer, just to keep that itch out of his throat. He wants to touch Kim, and he doesn’t wanna fuck things up, his hand kind of hovering while he watches, hypnotized. 

Kim’s good enough not to have to constantly come up for air, even though he sits back on his thighs a couple times to breathe. He takes him in both hands, then, thumb toying with the big head of his cock, or letting it disappear into his palm and reappear, while his other hand keeps up stroking.

He’s starting to look flushed from it, and Titus is starting to groan. No lube, but Kim isn’t shy about his spit drooling down his cock or dripping off his lower lip onto the tile. 

Titus finally runs a hand through that gelled back hair. Lets it rest there, not getting hold of Kim like he really wants to. Just the _idea_ of fucking his face does it for him and— He’s gotta catch a break, here.

“Slow it down,” he breathes. “I don’t wanna be ready to shoot.” Oh, he _wants_ to, just about is, but he wants the guy’s body, more. “If I gotta take something to reload I’ll be at your ass all night.”

That’s an idea. He could keep it up without coming as long as he wanted. He’s tempted. The thought of pounding away...

Kim backs off with a last, loud suck at the tip of him, breathing heavy. 

“Khm. As pleasant as that might be, I do have work tomorrow,” he says, voice hoarse from the blowjob.

Now Titus is looking at that wet mouth and Kim wiping a string of spit off his chin and thinking maybe he could have put more thought into planning things. That’s on him. He’s been overworked and latched onto the idea of a body in his bed.

He has a body climbed up in his lap, now, and settled on his thighs, next to weightless compared to his strength. There’s fingers on the plastic buttons of his shirt, pushing them free of their buttonholes, purposeful but unhurried. Titus gets his fingers on the zipper of that fitted jacket and drags it down, pushing it open.

Nothing but tight white shirt underneath takes him a second to process.

“No gun?”

Kim’s fingers pause. He looks amused, again — just not nearly as amused as when he just tried to kill him.

“If you can’t protect me with a fifty caliber pistol you’re not much of a law officer,” he says, letting the words have their moment to sink in, and then, more practically: “It’s frowned against to carry without a partner to testify to the necessity for lethal force. I check it into the armory when I know I’ll be going out privately.”

After ten years on the job, Titus has a hard time wrapping his head around leaving the house without 1.6 kilograms of firearm holstered beside him, and he’s killed a man with his bare hands.

“You’re really committed to this whole ‘good cop’ bit,” he says.

Something Titus can’t quite pin down passes over Kim’s face and the man’s fingers return to the rest of his buttons.

“More than some people, less than others.”

He pauses at his task and leans in to kiss Titus, a hand sliding up beneath his vest to finger the leather shoulder strap of his holster. Something prickles through Titus, the danger inherent to the gun he’s carrying. Kim’s tongue plies his mouth.

Then Kim sits back, tugging his vest straight. The RCM officer looks like somebody dumped a bucket of water over a cat.

“Mustard? You have to brush your teeth.”

Titus throws his hands up, only half for show.

“First I can’t finish my sandwich, and now I gotta brush my teeth? You son of a bitch.”

He works his irritation out pushing Kim’s coat off his shoulders, letting the man strip it off his arms behind him. He takes a swig of beer and washes it around his mouth before putting his mouth somewhere Kim won’t bitch about, kissing the skin beneath his ear open mouthed. Either half a sandwich was enough to do him or his body did him a favor and forgot about it because all he wants is Kim’s body under his tongue, his hands on his back and his ass.

Kim’s fingers unfasten the last two buttons of Titus’ shirt and then his hands are on Titus’ chest, fingernails raking through his chest hair, hands pushing back up toward his collarbone while he lets Titus work his neck. His hand dips between them for one stroke of Titus’ cock. That’s about when Titus realizes how hard Kim is against him.

“Bed might be better,” he says against Kim’s skin, getting enough of that skinny ass in his hand to give him a squeeze.

“I agree,” Kim says, voice still a little wrecked.

Kim snags his wallet off the floor as they climb off the couch. Has work tomorrow, Titus thinks, but might let him go through two condoms. Right now, though, he’s gotta cool off enough to get up in him. Besides the fact this guy would clearly put him through it if he blew his load too quick, he knows how hard he’ll let him fuck. For that, he could put up with twice the difficult attitude.

\----

Kim can still feel the ache in his jaw from taking Titus into his mouth. He supposed that, at that point, he owed him his effort, but he’d wanted to take up the challenge of him, besides that. He’s had decades to work on giving head, and a part of him that keeps score is pleased how far he took him into his throat for all he wasn’t going to try and swallow him.

He still got a silent laugh in at Titus’ expense and so he _wants_ to be more flexible, but he’s disgusted by commercial mustard. And the thoughts of the little pieces of sandwich…

Needless to say, he’s relieved when Titus lets himself into the hall bathroom. 

He glances from the open door to Titus’ bedroom to the remaining closed door that has to be a second bedroom.

“It’s not a meth lab, it’s a gym,” Titus says, back in good humor.

Kim looks the mountain of a human being up and down.

“Not an office?”

“Funny guy,” Titus says, giving Kim his own once over. “Go lose your clothes.”

Kim leaves him to his toothbrush, stepping into the bedroom. He sets the wallet on the bedside table and his electronic watch beside it and turns on the lamp in the dim. He’s a touch entertained that Titus has left his bottle of lube sitting out. From the fact it’s half empty, habitually.

It’s a simple bedroom, compared to the den. There’s a king size bed with an old wooden bed frame, a headboard but no footboard, and that’s most of the room. Of course, it would be difficult for Titus to get by with less. He’s not much shorter than the bed is long, if at all. 

Besides the bed, there’s an armoire to supplement the closet, one that looks like it’s seen more than a generation of use, and a coat rack that’s mostly ball caps. Everything else is decoration, jerseys on the wall and other sports miscellania. Photographs hung, as well.

Kim strips in relative comfort. It’s warming up outside. The air is temperate on his skin. He doesn’t feel out of place, here — a risk when going home with a man. He’s been to dumps too foul to have sex at and places Harry would call “bourgeois” that put him a step out of his element, part of a world of material ease and excess that has no place for him.

Two months ago, he wouldn’t have pictured himself in bed with a jock, but now that he’s here the trappings of Titus’ macho identity aren’t turnoffs. He appreciates every kilogram of muscle. Moreso that Titus has maintained his rock hard physique at their age. 

He couldn’t have stayed fit so long without a preoccupation with physical activity, and then who, exactly, would Kim find distraction in?

Titus follows him into the room after his detour, tossing a towel on the bed that lands heavy and wet. Kim moves to take a seat on the edge of the bed as Titus hangs his vest and holstered pistol on the coat rack and discards his shirt among Kim’s clothes on the floor. 

With his cock hanging out, it’s all quite a show. Kim leans back on one hand, letting the other caress his own. Titus gets out of his boots and socks and, with what sounds like a sigh of relief, ambles over.

Now he’s the one framed by Kim’s knees. He steps in to kiss him with a mint fresh mouth, swatting Kim's busy hand away to take over while he holds him in the kiss by the back of his head.

Titus steps back to await review, the skepticism on his broad face daring Kim to lodge a complaint.

“Much better,” Kim approves, glad not to be sharing someone else’s dinner mouth to mouth,

The tall man in just his unzipped jeans lights up at the praise, turning playful.

“Ass out. Lemmie prep you.”

Kim sucks in air through his nose to keep himself from otherwise reacting. He set the tone between them. And still, it’s a vulnerable moment to be teased.

He rolls over on the bed, pushing himself up on his hands and knees, cock awash in heat and chest tight. This should be easy — even if it’s not his habit, he’s opened his body more than enough times. It's a step off beat, a little more personal than he’s used to. He rarely knows his partners at all.

He knows Titus. They have a short but shared history, largely contentious but ultimately affirming. 

Last time, he was dissociated, but it’s immediate, now.

His eyelids flutter through Titus, lube in hand, caressing at his hole and sliding that first thick finger inside him. His body begins to relax, reminding him they’ve done this all before and Titus was careful and thorough. 

Kim could take an average sized man without particular preparation. Here there’s some chance of mishap.

The fact Kim somewhat surprisingly trusts Titus with his body eases the caution over if he’ll inflict indignity on him and Kim starts to think about what he wants.

The bed is higher, this time, and he doesn’t intend to get used as a cock sleeve — not in the same manner, anyway. He’d like to look the man in the face. He doesn’t like the idea of being a passive participant on his back underneath Titus, either. The idea of being a passive participant in anything is rarely appealing.

His thoughts, drifting into fantasies as large, work-hardened hands massage his body into a state of ease, are interrupted by the feeling of Titus pushing that third finger into him. He needs to open his hips wider, and does, the first wave of heat picking up through his body as the idea of taking Titus inside him suddenly becomes much less abstract.

“That good for you?” Titus asks after he’s fucked him open with lube slick fingers. From his tone it’s not part of whatever nonsense he’s babbled that Kim’s been ignoring, drawling voice washing over him.

“Yes, I’m ready,” he decides after a moment’s reconnection with his body.

It’s not a situation to say _That’s good enough_ and remain a little uncertain, as much as he can’t imagine being Titus — constantly obligated to delayed gratification.

Titus wipes his fingers off on the towel and drops it on the floor beside the bed while Kim turns over, sitting on his thighs, knees spread to let Titus stand between them. He rests his hands lightly on the man’s granite body, eyes lingering greedy on his cock. He raises his gaze to his face, but despite Titus’ eyes flickering to his lips Kim doesn’t move to kiss him, a plan already in place. 

“I have an idea what we should do,” Kim says, projecting crisp, aloof professionalism.

He watches Titus’ expression turn to cautious curiosity.

He leans in against Titus, his lips close enough to tickle his ear. He drops his voice to a different register, low and confident.

“I’m going to ride you.” 

A pleasing sense of control washes through Kim when the man’s whole body shivers under his hands. 

As he withdraws, Titus moves forward to catch his lips. Kim relaxes into it, lips parting to let their tongues brush together. He already grasps the physical difficulty of what he’s put on offer. He’s willing to negotiate it to exercise his influence — to satisfy the idea of having Titus underneath him.

“You don’t even know how often I don’t get to do this,” Titus drawls, smug and amused and with new affection, even more rapt on him.

Kim lifts a brow. If it’s true most of Titus’ sexual partners are women, it’s also true Kim has no idea what women like, or do, or much sense of their sexuality at all. He doesn’t get an explanation, just another minute’s kissing, which he would admit he prefers. He isn’t interested in what Titus does with women in bed.

He moves his hand from Titus’ back to close on the man’s condom-sheathed cock, giving it a few long, dry strokes, his saliva long evaporated.

\----

Titus hears himself groaning into Kim’s mouth as the man starts to masturbate him. He‘s backed off the edge-of-orgasm rigidity from the blowjob, but he still couldn’t get much harder.

Unless he’s got them real horny, women are too shallow to take his whole cock, and sometimes it doesn’t work out even then. They’ve usually gotta be into anal and game to get on top of him. 

Well, now he’s got somebody into anal and game. Doesn’t seem to matter to his body that it’s a guy. The man he lost, _his_ guy, the one he thought for over over a decade was the only one he’d be interested in, was always pretty difficult about… basically everything. He’d ride him, but only on his terms, when he felt like it, and he didn’t like a lot of eye contact, closed his eyes like Titus was just a dick.

He’s not gonna knock that, but this won’t be that and he’s no way he’s gonna turn him down.

He parts ways with Kim's mouth, getting his own pants the rest of the way off so he can get in bed, pulling the covers down before they climb up toward the headboard.

It’s a good feeling tumbling over with somebody, naked bodies hot on each other, working out his space and theirs until everything fits. He’s not shy to drag Kim around, hook a hand under his thigh and haul him up on him. From the eager way Kim adapts, the guy who had him slap his ass burning red is still turned on by some rough handling.

Maybe Kim’s been kinda prickly, but he has no problem going mouth to mouth again. Kim pushes it even deeper, now, as messy and wet as the blowjob. If he’s been lewd in the past, now he’s eating him out. Titus stays with that image, tries to give what he’s getting right back. Kim has a hand cupping his jaw, thumb dragging a slow line across his cheek. The other hand is stroking his chest, calm and firm for all he’s going to town on his mouth.

It’s doing something for his cock but he can’t quite square it. Nobody kisses him like this, gets his pulse up licking into him deep and animal. The hand on his chest slides up his neck, Kim’s fingers curling against his scalp through his short hair.

He’s not familiar with the sound he just made but it looks like Kim got what he wanted because the guy backs off, smug again.

Gauntlet down, huh.

“I’m gonna fuck that look right off your face,” Titus says, confident he can.

The corners of Kim’s lips bury themselves a little deeper into his cheeks. 

Kim leans down and kisses him again, a lot less pornographically.

“I expect you to follow through,” he says in that velveted voice of his.

Now, Kim gets himself situated, leaned forward over Titus as a hand reaches back to grip the shaft of his cock. Titus hears him exhale, relaxing himself, and he’s able to watch the careful expression on Kim’s face as he guides him to him, his body sinking back.

At first it’s the head of his cock pushed up against the soft give of Kim, starting to sink in, but there’s always that initial resistance, like it’s just not gonna work. It feels good as fuck when the pressure gives and Kim slides open around him, head of his cock passing through the kiss of that tight ring of muscle as it opens wide around him. Then it’s the hot walls of his body holding him, a heat he wants to drive himself into. 

He hears himself saying _Fuck_ and _Yeah_. He sees the sensation of it on Kim’s face like he couldn’t the first time, mouth falling open and brow drawn, a few seconds of breathing in shallow pants as he situates himself over him just to sink a little further back.

Titus has still gotta be careful though, here at first and until he’s sliding smooth through him. He’s gotten complaints.

A teenage Titus a long time back had been so damn proud to learn he packed more meat than the other boys. About three years later he found out that worked a lot different than advertised. 

Wouldn’t trade it. It’s a hell of a thing knowing his cock is ironing out the kinks in Kim’s intestines, too rock hard for the soft insides of him to resist as Kim fucks himself on him, working him in deeper. And Kim is soft, stretched smooth around him. 

Titus can’t help how much he wants to feel it skin on flesh. He misses that feeling, and the rush of cumming in a tough guy who’s giving it up to him, too. Kim may be slight, but he’s got an attitude as big as Titus.

Fucking condom.

There’s enough going on he can’t hold onto that thought for long. Kim may have deep reserves of confidence, but he’s still breathing harder as he sinks further onto Titus a little at a time, rocking on his thighs with Titus’ hands light against his sides to keep him steady. Titus doesn’t push up on him, letting him take it at his own pace.

A sound that shoots straight through Titus’ dick groans out of Kim’s throat at the same time, halfway down his cock, his thighs flex and he rolls his hips against him, dragging himself over Titus’ skin. 

“Not gonna be so quiet this time?” he teases. 

He doesn’t get a _look_ , now: he gets a low sound of agreement. It flips a switch in brain, from having a good time to needing to cum in this guy.

He can’t help himself, his hips start to answer Kim with small thrusts. Kim’s rocking faster, a flush picking up on his skin. Titus lets his hands move over him, smoothing up his sides and down, all the way up his shoulders, shoulder blades sharp under his palms. He’s not getting any resistance anymore, sex smooth as water with lube hot as their skin between them. 

He’s still enjoying this view, Kim’s face: the light off his glasses isn’t enough to hide his eyes, the man’s eyes lidded, swooning shut when he breathes in deep, his lips parted and panting, that look there to stay, now, breathing quietly, for now, but that sound’s gonna pick up. Sometimes his tongue sweeps his lips, keeping them slick and gleaming.

Kim’s still secure in himself, full confident, meeting Titus’ eyes with a gaze so steady it digs under his skin. Not in a way he minds — not while his cock’s up in him. The sounds Kim’s making, the small grunts and long groans of exertion at odds with that calm demeanor have Titus too drunk to care who’s in charge.

Kim has one arm stretched out, hand resting on Titus’ pec, and the other elbow drawn in, his hand on his abs, both arms giving easy and his back flexing as his thighs put in the work.

Titus could take over, exercise his strength and make it real simple for him. But he likes it like this, Kim making his own adjustments based on whatever he reads off Titus’ body. Right now: rocking forward to give him a long, smooth ride, gliding over his dick and sinking back to take Titus back up into him. 

The hot slide of it wrings a pleased groan out of his own throat. It feels fucking amazing, and looks as great as it feels, that slim, tight body taking the whole girth of him. 

It makes him wanna get in deeper. He pushes up with his heels on the bed to open his hips wider underneath him. When he starts pounding him he wants to be hard up in there.

He feels Kim’s weight shift and helps him out, hands on his sides in that transition between Kim leaning his weight on his chest and settling it upright over him. 

A couple bobs on his dick, but Kim can’t quite get what he wants. He has to reach back and press the shaft of Titus’ cock forward with his thumb while he moves on him until it’s sunk balls deep.

A smile picks up on Titus’ lips, the pleasure of Kim's body spurring him as he gets in a few good thrusts up against that ass, bouncing the man on his cock. His body heat ratchets up a notch.

“Damn but you’re hot, babe. I’m gonna make you sweat,” he teases. He’s answered with a falsely reserved _Khm_ , a tremor running through Kim’s inner thighs.

He likes the look of Kim, the flush spread across his face and shoulders. Titus wonders if he mostly likes how good to go he is compared to his size, but he can appreciate what he’s looking at: muscles lean but defined, everything firm about him except his little belly, and that’s kind of cute, small dark brown nipples, a light scattering of black hair between his pecs — it doesn’t pick up again and thicken until below his belly button, things besides his attitude that assert he’s another guy, a fact Titus just has to deal with. Probably he just got used to Glen’s, but Titus even likes that dick hard up against his stomach. Or maybe he likes he’s the one who has him going.

\----

Kim’s hand goes to his cock as Titus’ eyes rake over him. He’s aware of the power of sound to hold Titus captive, lets his breath catch and a groan rise from deep in his throat, flexing his thighs slow, trusting Titus’ hands to support him while he moves over him.

He’s glad for the view, the broad chest rising and falling, the ripple of Titus’ shoulders as the man’s hands explore his skin, the changing facets of his expression as Kim manipulates him with with changes of depth and speed and angle.

Glad enough not to rankle at _babe_. There’s no filter on Titus’ mouth, and the mood’s too good to chastise him. He already let him get away with it, before.

He’s certain now there’s nothing straight about the man inside him except the ramrod of his dick. Little chance it’s going to be the night or the mood to introduce bi-sexuality, but from the way Titus’ eyes fix on Kim’s hand stroking his cock, the man’s body already knows everything about it.

“Lube?” Kim prompts. “I’m dry.”

Titus reaches one long arm out to the bedside table and obediently retrieves it for him. 

Kim can’t help the little smile playing on his own lips as he thumbs open the cap and squeezes the cool, thick gel into his palm. 

He hands back the bottle, pleased Titus barely takes a second to glance away to make sure the lube actually ends up back on the table. 

He lets a small sound out as he smooths the lube over his dick, rising high on Titus’ to sink back down with a sigh. A carefully metered performance, and as effective as he intended.

He’s rapt on what he’s doing to him. This is what he missed out on their first time in bed, the element of sex he most frequently enjoys: control.

He’s going to relinquish it, again, but for these moments the power in the slide and twist of his hand on his own cock and the power in his thighs and throat to keep Titus focused thrills him. All that muscle and attitude, but from the unconscious way Titus licks his lips Kim knows, if he wanted to pursue it, he could have him sucking his dick.

“Better,” he says approvingly, though on a different page from Titus, his eyes falling shut through a wave of arousal before he lets the image of Titus on his knees pass.

He exhales the tension from his body and returns his focus to the cock beneath and inside him stretching him wide, eyes flickering open.

He feels Titus push up from under him, shift to brace his legs a little wider, again, and push up a second time, harder. Three small thrusts and Titus gives over to the need inside him, hips shoving up into Kim, lifting him off the bed so that Kim leans against him again for balance. 

Eyes shut and breath coming heavy, Titus holds him down against his hips and rolls tight against him, making short, heavy pushes that steal the air from Kim’s lungs — as if he could get any deeper. 

He can’t. But Kim loves his inborn need to try, urging him on with throaty approval.

Titus gets his head about him, shifts his grip, fingertips digging in to pull Kim open wide, and he lays on a stream of tense, fast thrusts, that smooth heat passing fast through Kim’s body. The sounds coming out of the man’s throat are like pleas. Kim coaxes him through it with one hand kneading the muscles of his shoulder.

Titus backs off with a groan. Kim looks down on him with amusement, collecting his breath, listening to him curse. 

“Shit, you can really take it,” Titus says, voice as hoarse as Kim’s was after going down.

Kim doesn’t let the momentum fall off, flexing his own muscles as Titus’ grip slacks to give him freedom to move, those calloused palms going back to sliding over him, keeping Kim’s body relaxed and loose. 

“You see, I’m gay and not satisfied with mediocrity,” Kim teases, his own voice thick.

He masturbates himself to the idea he’s not getting off Titus’s cock without the man’s help. His thighs are burning, quiver at intervals, starting to feel the strain, even as he works him.

“You said you’d wipe this look off my face,” he muses. 

“I remember something like that,” Titus says, grinning big as his hand cracks hard on Kim’s ass, catching him by surprise and causing him to flinch uselessly around him.

Both of Titus’ hands on his hips, now, and even reeling it’s easy to sit up because Titus is ridiculously strong. Kim braces a hand on the larger man’s arm as Titus rocks into him, feeling himself dragged over his lube slick cock, Titus using his body to stroke himself as he thrusts.

It’s Kim cursing, now, grasping the last shreds of his composure when he’s being used so easily his mind has room for nothing but the enormous sensation of being rolled over Titus as the man slides through him. He’s breathlessly thankful to be held steady when the longshoreman picks up the pace once more, pounding up against him, only to make an unbecoming sound at another fierce smack of Titus’ palm.

The sweat’s running off him, his body unaccustomed to hard use. He’s remembering to breathe and feels Titus slow it down a little. He meets the man’s careful gaze and gives him the nod. 

He relaxes over him as Titus’ hips jackhammer up, pleasured as it blends into a single smooth, arresting sensation. Still holding steady on the man’s stone firm arm, he gets his other hand on his own cock and strokes himself even as Titus’ pace breaks up into bigger, longer thrusts and when the force is so much Kim topples forward to brace himself on his sweating chest with his free hand.

He’s flexing his hips as Titus shoves up on him, enjoying riding him through a building orgasm. He whites out through his own, pulsing sticky semen onto the dark hairs of Titus’ abdomen. With Titus’ strength steering his hips Kim is still moving over him through it, and if he cried out, he hopes the man enjoys the memory. 

Finally, Titus pushes from beneath him slow. Kim watches his partner’s broad face move through the stations of pleasure as his orgasm plays out, whether Kim imagines or feels his cock pumping inside him.

They catch their heaving breath together. Titus comes out of his orgasm and picks up a grin so self-satisfied it says Kim probably shouted. Thank god Titus keeps his mouth shut.

Better than that, Titus gets a contemplative look and swipes his thumb through Kim’s cum cooling on his stomach, sucking it off with a smack of his lips. 

Kim has a sudden, dizzy moment of wanting to kiss him, stymied by his reeling brain, the exhaustion of his thighs and the intractable density of Titus’ cock inside him.

His legs feels loose and weak. He’s picked up his cardio since the week that Harry left him winded, but he’s been stretching dormant muscles, tonight.

He sighs contented pleasure as Titus helps him lift himself forward and while grasping his own softening cock to guide it out of Kim. Kim feels an impressive sensation of open emptiness, that inner muscle worked harder than all the rest and too spent, at least for a few minutes, to close up tight.

With steady hands. Titus makes sure Kim doesn’t have any difficulty climbing off him to rest beside him before he pulls off the condom. He leans over the edge of the bed and snags the towel he used earlier, flipping to a clean side to wipe the cum off his cock and stomach.

\----

It’s almost a shame, cleaning the sex off himself. Titus is filtering through a lot of immediate memories fighting for attention but one is the cum leaving Kim’s cock in strings with the tight laced RCM officer’s eyes shut and his mouth open and that shout coming from him that guaranteed Titus broke past his restraint, just for that second.

The taste of that moment on his tongue is a prize. Not as much of a taste as he would’ve taken, though, because he’s not brushing his damn teeth again.

Titus tosses the towel back on the floor and rolls over onto his side to face Kim where he lies flushed, light reflecting off the sweat on his skin half as bright as off his glasses. He lays a hand on Kim’s belly, idly caressing while he’s thinking how far up in there he got. Maybe Kim started off calling the shots, but Titus’ll be jerking off to cutting loose with him for a _while_.

He’s grateful is what he is that Kim’ll take it as hard as he does and that the guy enjoys it. 

Which doesn’t mean Kim’s not looking winded.

“You need anything?” Titus asks.

Kim takes pause to consider it.

“Water, later.” 

“Yeah, alright,” Titus says, kissing him lazily, still fucked out from his orgasm.

Worn out as the rest of him looks, Kim’s eyes are keen.

“When you approached me at the bar, I think I expected an inconsiderate jock.”

Titus scoffs.

“You just let me wreck your ass. I can get you a glass of water.”

He’s sure Kim could get moving if he really wanted to and also that it’d ruin the comfortable looking wallow the guy has going.

“I’m in bed with you, again, so I can’t fault your methods.”

Titus can’t picture himself _not_ expressing that gratitude that he got to muscle him however he wanted.

He knows a couple pros he can fuck with, but this is this guy’s thing so much he called looking for it, himself. It means something that somebody with this guy’s standards is down to fuck.

He shakes his head, reflecting on his ‘methods’.

“You’re just lucky you’re a few decades into my sex life. I don’t even wanna look back at the fuckups.”

“Khm. No, I don’t want to hear about them, either,” Kim says. He still looks entertained, and that’s what Titus was angling for.

Titus falls into kissing him, lingering and lazy.

He doesn’t know for sure how long the man will let him at it. Things were different, before. They’d just been through some real shit. Kim hasn’t been so approachable, tonight.

It’s not until Kim rests his hand on his cheek and traces the shell of his ear with his thumb that Titus feels like he has the go ahead to shift deeper into it, start touching him, too.

He’s already had his hands on all of him, but it feels like the first time getting to know Kim’s body. He’s not just desperate for skin, this time around. Keeping the focus on sex is something to enjoy instead of a way to bail water on a brain too ready to remind him of something he’d rather forget. 

Kim isn’t as short as Titus is big compared to just about anybody, but Ruby was right the guy is bantamweight, maybe featherweight. He likes how much of Kim he has in his hand wherever it gets to wandering. He remembers closing his fist around one of these slim wrists and holding it to the mattress. He can drag a hand up Kim’s thigh and have a grip on the whole thing, thumb on top and fingertips just digging into the bottom.

It makes him want to cover him like an animal and fuck into him, that skinny body underneath him taking the snap and the roll of his hips until he grinds one out inside him.

It’s a good thing the idea doesn’t cause more than a wave of pleasure in his cock that breaks and passes. It was great to be nineteen and pop a boner whenever he felt like it, but he seriously doubts Kim wants him right back up on him.

If he kisses him hungrier, he can’t help it. Kim’s good for it and gives it right back for the minute it takes to get it out of his system.

Those long fingers play across his body the whole time, alternately soothing and urging, pausing at certain nicks and scars. Finally they trail down his leg to the ugly mess where the scar tissue thickened and raised in contrast with his skin.

“Do you mind if I ask what happened?”

He expected the question. He’d pass it off with a chick, say _Harbor accident_ , but he thinks Kim might find that kinda patronizing. 

He would if their positions were reversed.

“The short version? Synthetic cable snapped. Snapback went right through it.”

Kim’s touch lingers on the old wound.

“And the long version?”

Of course _this_ is what he wants to hear about.

Titus can still remember lying on his back, eyes wide, a dizzy image of the aerostatic above him, a beam of sunlight breaking blinding bright over the round white swell of its side and what’s left of the mooring rope dangling off it in its shadow. He couldn’t hear anything over himself.

He’s gotten used to having to send that memory back where it came from during sex. Used to it enough to play it off.

“The long version has _screaming_. I was twenty-six. It happened outta nowhere. Didn’t know if I just lost my leg,” he says. “Why don’t you ask about the ones that have badass war stories?”

Kim lifts his brow just-so.

“Everyone I know has ‘badass war stories’. You’ll have to look for someone else to impress.”

Titus can hear the joke in it, and the mood’s not stone dead, but he’d take a rewind to before Kim’s hand landed on his scar.

“Our pillow talk really needs work here.”

Kim’s offending hand removes itself somewhere more welcome, fingers caressing through Titus’ short cropped hair as a hint of a smile plays on Kim’s lips.

“You’re not wrong. However, I’d take that water.” There’s hesitation on his face, then, his thoughts turning inward. “But I’d like a cigarette. I should probably go on the porch.”

He focuses on Titus, again, a question written in his expression.

Now _that_ would kill the mood. No way is Titus fucking with that.

“What, and put clothes on? Nah. Where are they, your jacket?”

“Mm,” Kim says, thinking, again. “My jacket.”

Titus places a brief kiss on the man’s temple, a kiss enough to say he’ll get back to his mouth, and goes to get the guy his water.

\----

Lying comfortably on his back, Kim fixes his gaze on the two bell mechanical clock beside Titus’ bed. It’s nine thirty four. He could still, if he wanted, make the ten o’clock bus. If he jogged.

He acknowledges that nothing about the situation calls for that. 

It’s almost besides the point that the time to leave would have been before asking Titus to bring him water. He wasn’t alone with himself until then. 

There’s an easy, sated mellowness in his muscles. He can still feel Titus’ warmth on his skin and it lingers in the sheets beside him. He shouldn’t have interrupted Titus touching him, and he did, and once he did he shouldn’t have put him off. He should have asked about the knife wound on his rib cage. Titus was obviously inviting that and instead he asked him for water.

He pushes the butt of his hand to his forehead and closes his eyes. It was a bad idea to put himself in this position in the first place. It doesn’t matter how sexually compatible he is with someone when he’s incompetent at private conversations and bound to end up in one. 

Kim’s conversational aptitude hasn’t changed. It’s Harry who’s been the difference maker. 

He hears Titus returning and spares a last glance at the clock. Nine thirty-six and he certainly isn’t putting himself together in time to make the bus. 

In fact, all he’d accomplish would be to look embarrassingly neurotic and end up sleeping at the hostel.

“My boxers, too, if you could. I’m a little cold,” he says as Titus enters the room, pushing himself up from where he’s been reclined. His heart flutters at the uncertainty of catching the pack of Astras Titus tosses his way, but to his relief he doesn’t fumble them. The lighter lands casually nearby. Kim collects them both up to set on the bed beside him.

He relaxes when he’s partly dressed, murmuring a _Thank you_ as he takes the water and feeling less vulnerable as he sips from it. Looking composed is a large step toward being composed, and he likes the lingering way Titus watches him, besides. 

Being the only thing a man of Titus’ stature sees has a warm heat curling in his stomach. He’s being waited on because Titus watches out for his friends, yes, and moreso because the man wants to keep fucking him. From his body language, as soon as possible.

Kim stops thinking about implausible escape plans. He can field any conversation with Titus. He has the natural upper hand. He can easily go the night without further physical intimacy. 

He relishes the idea he could have Titus begging to get on top of him, heat in his stomach stoked to a low burn.

As his pulse picks up with new excitement the anxiety bleeds away, and he’s not concerned with positions or impressions anymore. He made his impression and there’s a thrill in just having Titus on the hook.

He sets the empty water glass between them to ash in and opens the Astras, thumbing one out of the pack to dangle between his lips. A flick of his lighter and he breathes it to life.

“Mind if I bum one off you?” Titus says, leaned back against the headboard beside him, naked and, from what Kim knows of him, likely to stay that way.

Kim hands the pack and then the lighter over to him. Titus pulls a cigarette out and lights it just shy of the ease of a habitual smoker before setting the pack and lighter with the rest of the paraphernalia on the bedside table.

For a pleasant moment, they smoke in silence.

“You oughta try dipping. Has a hell of a kick,” Titus says, the wistfulness addiction.

Kim frowns at the thought.

“No thank you. I had enough problems as a chain smoker. Now, it’s one cigarette a day,” he says, considering the thin paper cylinder alight between his fingers.

“I could see the chain smoking,” Titus says. “You’re wound kinda tight.”

Kim's expression folds into utter ambiguity.

“Am I?”

Titus has the sense to look cautious, holding his hands up in surrender with a ‘no harm no foul’ grin.

“Right. This is me walking that back.”

A smile creeps into Kim’s expression. He reaches his hand out to let it rest on Titus’ forearm, running his thumb through the soft, dark hairs there.

“I’m not used to ‘pillow talk’. I’ve usually left by now.”

Titus exhales a weightless river of smoke, that grin doubling as Kim realizes he gave the man too much leash.

“Look at Mr. Pump and Dump over here.”

The tips of Kim’s ears get hot, social anxiety claiming a momentary victory when he can’t reconcile himself to the charge and can’t defend against it.

He takes a moment alone with his cigarette.

“It isn’t cruel,” he evades. “We call anonymous encounters ‘cruising’. It would be more unusual to stay.”

If he was afraid Titus might seize on his lapse of self-assurance, Titus immediately becomes occupied with something that troubles his brow instead.

The longshoreman takes a long drag on his low burning cigarette and vents the smoke in a slow exhalation.

“Anonymous? That’s rough,” he says. 

Kim gives him quiet, because he’s clearly mulling on more.

“Damn if I don’t know there’s pressure for queers to stay in the closet,” he says, finally. “Never got Glen out.” The big man shakes his head but doesn’t quite shake off the ache of the visible wound. “Knew him most our lives and I’ve got zero idea if he went in for that.”

It isn’t Kim’s business, not really, Titus’ bond of brotherhood with Glen. It was only a split second’s chance, an accident in time, that connected Kim and Glen in a horrible way, when the bullets De Paule intended for him found Glen’s body, instead. 

It wasn’t until after he’d been with Titus that he knew enough to place Glen’s death as disproportionately impactful compared to the others.

_”Glen was my friend. Best I've ever had. I loved that crazy homo like my own brother.”_

Kim drops his cigarette into the water at the bottom of the glass, where it fizzles. Titus does the same, and he puts the glass aside. 

It isn’t in question what they both want: touch, and Kim pulls gently at Titus’ arm as he lowers himself back down to the mattress.

It doesn’t take more than that for Titus to find his way back to lying beside him, kissing him, their mouths tasting like tobacco and chestnut.

Kim can’t know what Titus is thinking, but he knows what he said. That he had spent his effort trying to help a man come to terms with himself when that man, in Kim’s brief acquaintance with him, was violently hostile to the idea. 

Kim doesn’t have the capacity to expose enough of himself to say Titus was a good friend and good man to stand by Glen through it, or that it matters, that he remembers what it was like struggling through his confusion with no one there for him at all. That incapacity is a tight knit part of exactly his ability to defend himself from having to live through that kind of turmoil, again.

He kisses him past the point a different, less well defended Kim Kitsuragi might have said anything resembling that, until they’re just being intimate for the sake of it, again.

\----

For the first time Titus is glad Kim’s as quiet and retreating as he is, because he had to work through a rough patch there and maybe for once he needed his head to himself.

It kinda hurt, thinking about Glen getting with other guys. Not in a jealous way, but in the way he never met them. And Glen couldn’t have gotten by his whole life just occasionally coming onto him, right? He sure as hell hopes not, anyway. Glenny knew all his girlfriends. Not that they liked him, or that he liked them, but Titus and Glen were a package deal.

And missing Glen means missing Theo, and Angus, and even that little bastard Dennis.

It’s all easier to move past when he’s got somebody in his arms and making demands on his mouth and dragging him again and again back to the present with his hands on his body until finally he’s just kissing him and maybe starting to think about putting it to him, again.

He recognizes he feels chilly, remembers Kim already said he was cold, and reaches down to pull the covers up over them. Probably should have thought of that awhile ago, but he’d been preoccupied.

“I’m a little tired,” Kim says. It might be in response to the semi Titus has got pressed up against his leg.

“That mean…?” Titus really doesn’t want to hear he can’t get off again, mind reeling for words. “Come on. You’re still wet.”

The knowing way Kim looks at him reassures him at the exact same time he realizes he’s being played.

The slighter man presses his lips to Titus’ and lingers in close to toy with him, words precise:

“I didn’t say you can’t fuck me, I said I’m a little tired.”

Titus’ mood picks right up.

“Alright, ‘A Little Tired,’ m’ sure I can shoulder the work.”

Looking extremely satisfied, Kim rolls over in his arms, leaving Titus pressed up against his back.

“Not more than once, and you’re not doing it bare.”

Titus rolls his eyes behind him, unseen, hand caressing down Kim’s bare side.

“You never shut up about that, do you?”

“Have you had an STI test and stopped sleeping with other people?”

“Don’t know if I see that happening.”

“Then use a condom.”

It’s then that Titus realizes with surprise he’s being handed Kim’s glasses, metal delicate between his thick fingers. He makes a point to look over his shoulder and find space for them where they’re not going to fall. 

Any complaints he might have lodged are lost to silence as he looks at Kim in profile, one of his pillows pulled beneath the man’s head. 

From the kick he gets out of being put in charge, he could admit he’s got a thing going for the guy. Physical, sure, but he wants Kim putting his ass on offer to pay off for him. Maybe he’d like him to put out again. It makes him think twice about rushing to the finish line. 

He lets himself take the time to do a little touching. It’s a good thing, too. Tension has crept back up into Kim. It takes some muscle-kneading and his hand down Kim’s boxers, getting intimate again with his dick, before he actually gets him as pliant as he wants him, making pleased sounds that spur him on.

Condom on. Lubed back up. He’s full hard, now, and he’s itching under his skin to get in there as he pulls Kim’s boxers down around his thighs. He pushes a couple fingers in there first, satisfying himself he’s still relaxed before he lines his cock up.

\----

Kim is thankful that from the brush of the condom’s reservoir tip he doesn’t have to rouse himself to make sure Titus listened to him.

It’s not as if he enjoys being pedantic, but the potential alternatives are too miserable.

The muscle between his buttocks is tired and his skin faintly swollen. It aches in a dull way to take the stretch of Titus’s cock. Not so much he doesn’t enjoy it. It makes his partner feel even bigger and demands Kim’s body further unwind to take him in. Titus has one of Kim’s thighs hitched up until he’s worked his way inside him.

Kim lets himself groan through the penetration and fists a hand in the covers, eyes shut. If they were open he’d be just as blind, the world before him a blur of indistinct shapes, their colors smudged together.

He’s not as tired as all that, already roused from his drifting by Titus’ hands convincing his body he hadn’t placed himself in a position he’d be taken advantage of.

His hips drag tight circles against the cock thrusting through him. He has Titus stone solid against his back, powerful body flexing into him. The animal grunts from behind him and the longshoreman’s lips pressed to his shoulders in appeasing gratitude secure a comfortable sense of power.

The furthest thing from feeling completely stripped of control in Harry’s apartment.

He takes Titus’ orgasm gasping with the man’s hips hammering close against him and his overworked body locked in his grasp. He goes slack on the bed as Titus withdraws from him, exhausted now with no need to think about anything further at all, alarm already set on his watch. 

The other man coaxes his orgasm out of him, one big hand caressing his dick, Titus dragging in a far piece of the comforter to cast the mess of it away. 

He’s already dozing, hips tender but not in pain, by the time Titus turns off the lamp.


	5. Chapter 5

**Wednesday, 14 April ‘51**

Hands in suds, Kim sets his plate down in the sink and wipes them off quickly on the towel at the bell of the phone in the living room.

The day stretched unusually long, from waking up in Martinaise through an extra half hour on the bus to a full day’s work. Sinking his taxed muscles into the comfort of the couch he knows he should already be asleep, but he put Harry off outside of work for long enough.

"Hello?"

"Hey. It’s me."

Kim spares a tired smile for the enthusiasm that tinges Harry’s voice.

"I apologize I was too tired to go out," he says.

Harry scoffs from the other end of the line where a car is tearing down Perdition in the night. Kim can picture Harry illuminated by the streetlight under the phone booth’s plastic umbrella, tall and leaning against the classically green phone.

"This is what we’d usually be doing on a Wednesday night," he says. "You don’t owe me something. I owe you."

That’s patently ridiculous and Kim wishes he hadn’t made him feel that way.

"You don’t owe me. You had a medical crisis."

It’s an important difference that didn’t change the fact Harry’s suicidality and unnerving confession completely derailed Kim, or that Kim had nothing left to give.

"Okay, I don’t owe you," Harry relents. "I appreciate what you did."

Kim enforces normalcy on his own tone and poise. 

"How have you been?"

"Besides that I felt like shit for what I put you through, I was feeling great — for all the wrong reasons. Alcohol withdrawal’s making a comeback, though."

"Of course it is."

Harry grows hesitant.

"You talk with Jean?"

Although it doesn’t color his words, Kim feels a wave of compassion.

"Not yet. I wanted to make sure it's what you want. I don’t want to bring Vicquemare into this if it’s just a way for you to punish yourself. I couldn’t be sure."

"That’s… Thanks. Thank you, Kim." The smile in Harry’s voice carries across the line. "I’m sure, though. I need to know." 

He pauses, his breathing audible. Kim’s grown so used to his voice and his presence he can imagine him building himself up for whatever comes next.

"If you want me to, I can ask him myself," he says. "I just don’t know how he’ll take it. The guy kept trying to convince himself my amnesia is a psychopathic joke."

Kim gives himself an appropriate amount of time to consider their options. It’s definite progress for Harry to offer to speak with someone who he has a patchy relationship with, at best. Kim approves of Harry taking responsibility for himself. 

Except it’s necessary to consider Jean could benefit from the freedom to vent without coming into direct conflict with Harry.

"Based on the possibility you haven’t told him at all, I agree it would be better for me to speak with him," Kim concludes aloud, then, dryly: "I suppose it’s too late for me to hope you’ll tell me you were joking."

Harry chuckles, deep and throaty with years of heavy smoking.

"No luck. Got a whole posse in here." Words hanging, he stops to weigh something. He pushes forward. "Been doing some counting. There’s at least twenty seven." He stops again, and changes gears, ribbing: "But maybe that’s not a topic for right now, I’m guessing you wanna go to bed on having a good time last night."

"Twenty-seven…" Kim murmurs to himself in disbelief. The words don’t sink in. He shakes the thought off. 

He didn’t expect Harry not to tease him for coming to work in the state he did, half exhausted for reasons that would be blindingly obvious to someone with Harry’s deductive acuity. Unfortunately, he can’t go to bed on a note of friendly teasing. He braces himself, straightening his already erect posture.

Now his voice does soften. 

"Harry, I followed up on something Vicquemare said to me last week, that you had had bloodwork done. Forgive me for intruding on your privacy, but it wasn’t good."

He requested the results and discussed them with the station’s lazareth knowing Harry would forgive his trespass, but it doesn’t mean he didn’t intrude.

"Gottlieb gave me that impression," Harry says, not remotely phased. "Go on. Hit me with it."

Kim’s voice resolves to its typical lithic calm.

"It’s not just your liver, or your kidneys, or your pancreas, or long term chance of heart failure." Privately, each one inspires its own fear in Kim, but they aren’t of immediate concern. "Gottlieb warned me any binge drinking episode could cause a change in blood pressure that results in fatal arrhythmia. You can’t drink, Harry."

There’s hesitation again on the other end of the line.

"It’d be easy to tell you I won’t."

Easy, Kim thinks, and meaningless.

"If consideration for my grief isn’t enough to stop you, it won’t be enough to stop you. But I need you to understand you can’t drink."

"I get it, Kim. I hear you."

Harry sounds humbled. Kim believes him. 

There’s no point in dragging it out further than that. Kim relaxes incrementally and focuses on what Harry really wanted to talk about.

"You are listening to me and not wondering about my night?"

"I’m listening. But you had a good time, right?"

The memory of last night, of Titus’ rugged hands on him and the girth of his cock, in no way resembles a normal outing for him, but there’s no doubt he had a good time.

Thankfully Harry can no longer see him, or read his introspective turn as he reflects on being so exhausted from sex as to allow himself to be kissed, a second consecutive time. It had been satisfying and then comfortable, and enjoyable throughout.

His voice remains flawlessly crisp, his own way of teasing.

"Yes, detective. I enjoyed my evening. Whatever it was I was doing."

"Not one detail?" 

"I’m certain you’ve deduced more than one detail. I’m not encouraging you."

"Good for you," Harry says, anyway, sounding genuinely proud for him. "You deserve to unwind."

"Thank you," he responds neutrally with an inward smile. "I’m sure I do."

His mind suddenly fixes on the fact of Harry watching him throughout their day the station, expertly picking apart the evidence he’d had sex, and hard sex. He never expected to be able to hide it and, not being ashamed, didn’t try.

His throat tightens as he fully realizes the casual obscenity of Harry picturing him nude, and with an unknown partner, working out god knows what. No doubt that another man fucked him.

Maybe he _should_ be embarrassed, or be incensed, to be studied at that resolution, but it all feeds into the thoughts he’s had of exploring Harry’s body — knowing Harry explored his. 

Although, in the moments he’s caught himself fantasizing as much Harry is typically underneath him, eyes blown and skin sweating, his hirsute body pliant to his demands—

His ears burn. He let his thoughts reel too far. He nearly excuses himself from the conversation, except Harry speaks first:

"How about that new one out of Iilmaraa by Adanna Atuegbu? The Sons of Nine. You picked it up yet?"

It shouldn’t surprise him that Harry remembers the authors on his bookshelf, or that his friend guessed what he would be reading without him ever mentioning it. The unfamiliar experience surprises him, anyway, and pleasantly, chasing away the conflicted arousal.

"I bought it Monday," he says, managing to control his voice. "I haven’t had time to finish it, so don’t spoil anything."

"How far in are you?" Harry asks.

Kim indulges him, and himself, ultimately glad that Harry contains his enthusiasm and doesn’t spoil the novel despite grilling him for his impressions so far in a charmingly familiar way. Both a natural and practiced detective, Harry really only has one setting.

He hangs up the phone at peace for the first time in days, straightening to stand and turning out the lights to retreat to his bedroom. He leaves the dishes for the morning.

He can’t allow himself to follow the sensational train of thought his mind went down on the phone, but every complaint of his tired muscles reminds him of time well spent.

He thinks back to the high pitched sound of the alarm on his watch going off in the dim of Titus’ bedroom and the man with his warm, heavy arm draped over him muttering _The hell time is it?_ but stirring himself, anyway, and retrieving Kim’s glasses when prompted, the room resolving into sudden clarity.

Kim had no intention of being lured into any snares but pressed a brief, chaste kiss against the corner of the man’s lips before sliding out of bed into the chill of the room, grateful for his boxers.

He felt a pleasant echo of use in his lower body as he dressed himself, gathering his belongings from the bedside table and following the trail of his clothing into the living room.

He was zipping up his jacket by the time Titus, undressed, followed him, the outstanding sized man leaning against the wall of the short hallway — bare skin, muscles, scars, and flaccid cock — watching him with more than casual interest.

"I know better than to start kissing naked men," Kim deferred, despite the rise in heat in his own body.

Titus broke into a grin.

"Wouldn’t take a minute to get you back out of those clothes."

Kim’s own smile appeared: warm but slight, precisely controlled.

"Have a good day, Titus."

He let himself out to catch the 6 AM bus.

\----

**Thursday, 15 April ‘51**

__

__

_Would you be available to join me for dinner after our shift, Lieutenant? We need to talk privately._

Whatever it is, it’s going to be bad. Because it’s going to be bad, Jean already knows it’s about Harry. The hiring process has demanded close discussions, but none of them private. 

Still in uniform, he follows Kim and the waitress to a table against the far wood slat wall of the Semenese restaurant. A real ethnic joint, not a single person he hears is speaking Revacholian Suresne. 

It has a modern Boogie Street take on Semenese decor but the food looks traditional: fish and shellfish, pineapple, lime, coconut… Jean hasn’t eaten Semenese in months. His mouth is already watering.

The important thing, however, is the place has the requisite atmosphere of no one they know being in earshot. 

Jean knows Trant loves Semenese cuisine and Jean thinks it’s a shame that Kim vetoed inviting him. He’s also always had intelligent input to offer on Harry, despite sidetracking into obscure and questionably relevant theory. But in this case, it was Kim’s call.

They situate themselves at the table, taking a minute with their menus first in silence and then in discussion.

It’s after they place their orders that their expressions sober.

"This has to do with when the shitkid got shitfaced, doesn’t it?"

Kim sips his water, brow furrowed, if only slightly. Jean doesn’t like that whatever Kim has to tell him puts that expression on his normally impassive new partner.

"Tangentially. He brought up something more concerning than his alcohol addiction once he became sober."

"If it’s bigger than his alcoholism, I may need a drink."

Kim’s forehead remains knit. His critical eyes have fixed on Jean, watching him with a care that unsettles him.

"While we were in Martinaise, Harry shared with me he was experiencing some kind of hallucination — that his tie had been speaking to him."

Jean ignores that the first emotion to take him is a kind of jealousy. He’s had time to deal with the fact that as much as he’s like the old Harry, this new Harry readily opened up to Kim during the confusion of reorienting himself to the world, sometimes about things that took Jean time and effort to earn explanations for.

"The fucking tie? Yes, they were _pals_ , best friends. It took months for him to tell me. Months of me watching him hang onto the thing, muttering to it." He’s had a question of his own he hasn’t wanted to give Harry’s delusion the acknowledgment of asking. "What happened to the tie? He never took it off."

"It became part of the improvised incendiary device that killed Raul Kortenaer," Kim says with dispassionate professionalism.

Jean can only be thankful. Briefly. He sighs heavily and tries to put himself together for whatever bad news he’s about to receive, the weight of foreboding settling on him.

"A hell of a way to go out. But that should mean it’s gone now. Problem solved. You’re about to tell me the problem is enormously more fucked than I imagined."

Kim nods. His brow has cleared. He looks icy calm. 

"He told me that he hears other voices. It sounds like some of them antagonize him." The cool carries over when he speaks, his voice betraying no opinion or emotion. "He doesn’t know if this is a new condition. He thought, if it isn’t, that he might have told you before he lost his memory."

Jean drags his hands over his face, rubbing at his eyes. The foreboding sinks into something strained and weakly resistant.

"Fuck."

"He didn’t tell you, but do you think he might have been hiding them?" Kim continues mercilessly.

Jean folds his arms on the table, retracing his memories of his partnership with Harry with this new information in mind. 

"He wasn’t always wringing the tie when he talked to himself. Sometimes it was normal, brief. Sometimes he’d go into fugues. Two, three, even five minutes. He’d be muttering. It wouldn’t surprise me if there’d been other voices," he concludes after due reflection.

Harry’s strange behavior hadn’t changed whether it was during the good times or the bad. He’d smile away Jean’s concern, or brush it off. _Just thinking to myself._

Kim sets his jaw, grim.

"I’ve seen the same fugues."

Jean sits up only to slump back in his chair, one hand massaging his temples. He doesn't care what he looks like to the people around them right now. They don’t seem to be paying attention, anyway. He and Kim may have RCM patches on their jackets, but to the regulars they’re still merely cultural tourists.

"That’s it, then. He’s fucking insane."

Kim’s calm further gives way as he presses his lips to a thin line, his gaze falling to fix unfocused on the surface of the table.

Jean drops his hand to watch him, waiting patiently for whatever it is he’s trying to put the words together to say. 

He picks himself up in the interim, trying, although failing, to square with the fact that Harry may be much more ill than he thought. 

"He’s not necessarily insane," Kim says, at last. "He…"

His partner hasn’t found the words yet. 

Jean’s going to be very interested to hear this argument.

They’re interrupted by the waitress bringing their food. Jean thinks about asking her for a beer. He lets the thought go.

They both try to look grateful and pleasant as she sets the steaming dishes before them, but their moods lapse as soon as her back is turned.

Kim reaches for his fork, but only to hold it, making no move toward his food. His brow knits, again.

"I still have a hard time believing it, but we found our suspect, Ruby, because he had a vision of her location. When he built his explosive, and when he drew it before we knew there would be a conflict, he said his preparedness was a matter of the tie talking to him. I can’t help but…"

Agitation rises in Jean, his pulse accelerating. He’s sick of this. He’s sick of all Harry’s shit and the fact he’s roped Lieutenant Kitsuragi, who Jean respects, into it just like he roped Jean into it.

"No, Lieutenant. He doesn’t have extranatural visions. He’s an intelligent man who makes smart guesses. I’ve been through this again and again. I’ll tell you what’s not new: doomcrying about the apocalypse, these so-called paranatural visions, his preoccupation with entroponetics, an obsession with his ex-fiancée, apologizing, crying, violent outbursts, drug abuse and alcoholism."

Kim remains placid through Jean’s tirade.

"You’ve been through a great deal."

"No _shit_."

At that moment Jean recognizes the volume of his voice and how heated he’s become. Tourist or not, he's drawing gazes, now. 

As many times as he’s yelled at Harry for the whole bullpen to hear, alone with Kim it suddenly feels unforgivably childish. 

The other officer is watching him with quiet and compassion, giving him time to collect himself.

"—apologies, Lieutenant. That was out of line," he says.

"It could certainly be coincidental that at the same time I came to rely on his senses, we encountered entroponetic phenomena and even his enthusiasm for cryptozoology bore fruit," Kim submits. "Probability plays tricks."

"But?"

"It’s also possible that you’ve downplayed the more disturbing aspects of his talents. If they’re real then they are disconcerting, just as disconcerting as if he was insane."

"Are Harry’s talents being real and Harry being insane mutually exclusive?" Jean wonders, while calm, now, and toying with his own fork. "I used to rely on him. Some of the heads up he gave me saved lives, mine included."

It’s obvious their food will be lukewarm at best before they ever get to it, but then they didn’t really come here to eat.

Jean pushes past his own hesitation over the story he has to tell, letting the words come without judging himself.

"There’s one case I can’t get out of my head. There was a chemist, let’s call her Carmen, she got out of Villalobos. She earned her university degree. But her brother was in deep with a mob boss. One more poor fuck trying to stay fed. You know the story, the mob boss used him to acquire her services. The two of them got tickets to escape to Gottwald, but they got hijacked on the way to the aerodrome. We don’t learn half of this until later, because that’s the point that somebody tips us off. They’re gonna be whacked. As an example. Where? Who the fuck knows. 

"Harry knows, though. Says they drove them out to the Old South. Tells me he sees a water tower. It’s painted red, he says. One of those big, silo water towers and the roof’s painted red. He’s so fucking sure about this we’re driving out there. And there they are, a couple kilometers off from this water tower. Digging their own graves."

The words leaving him take something with him. Dignity, or confidence, or the defenses he’s fought to build against an ultimately manipulative and abusive former partner. 

"So, you believe," Kim says quietly. The story seems to have taken something from him, too.

Hope that this was all a sick man’s ridiculous fantasy, probably.

"I don’t know how he did it, but I can’t write that one off," Jean says. "I lied about it in the incident report. I said we’d heard of recent activity in that area." Jean reluctantly shakes his head. "It didn’t mean I could let myself start believing _all_ his bullshit."

Kim prods at the cooling food on his plate.

"This… makes things more difficult."

"Makes what more difficult?"

The lieutenant meets Jean’s eyes.

"He trusts our opinion on if he should be medicated."

Jean scoffs, that jealous feeling briefly seizing hold.

"God damn it. I’ve told him he should be medicated. He never listened to me."

All his time struggling, and he can’t take credit for the payoff because it came through some sort of brain damage instead of a private revelation of Harry’s. 

"He’s willing to listen, now," Kim says. "What would you say to him?"

"That I’m not a professional. There’s a charity care clinic in Central Jamrock that offers psychiatric services on a sliding fee scale. I’d tell him to make an appointment there, and to keep it this time. I’d tell him it doesn’t matter what bizarre abilities he might have if he dies from the drink."

Kim finally focuses on his food long enough to take a bite. He chews thoughtfully.

"That seems reasonable. Maybe if we both speak to him, together? That is, if the atmosphere is supportive."

Jean collects his own forkful.

"Fuck. It’s been months since I talked to him like an adult human being."

The fish is great, even lukewarm.

"You were his partner for over two years. I’m certain you both remember that. Even though he can’t remember the events, your esteem matters to him."

Kim sounds so confident that Jean almost believes him.

"Alright. Fine. We’ll have a meeting. Like three adult professionals."

It’s difficult at first to pick up conversation again after they set into their food. Jean’s preoccupied by the conversation they just had. He knows Kim is, too.

Eventually, though, they get to talking about Kim’s car. It’s like a pet, a dog, a neutral fallback topic for discussion. 

Jean’s never known anyone who drives a sports MC, besides. He’s kind of looking forward to when they resume casework, getting to ride in the thing. 

He has a hunch it’s not very likely he’ll get to drive it.

\----

The sun set on Martinaise hours ago while Ruby and Hardie were still busy, Hardie with Eugene on an investigation into a domestic violence report and Ruby on a transport run.

The Hardies don’t get involved in most domestic incidents in Martinaise, but from what Ruby understands this one had involved a firearm. Past tense. Now there’s no firearm on the premises, or alcohol, but a man left with a broken nose and a dressing down.

It’s a tough line to walk, Hardie says. He knows this guy is the only one in the home bringing in income. There’s no welfare program in Martinaise. There’s nothing to do except let the couple try to work things out. The woman was yelling _Don’t hurt him._

The broken nose was on account of Hardie elbowing him in the face when he started to try and hold on to the gun despite Eugene holding him at gunpoint.

_Apartment walls are thin. Can’t just let some drunk fuck around with a firearm even if the wife didn’t want us involved._

They’re walking along Rue de Saint-Ghislaine, the rhythmic sound of the water lapping the concrete beside them.

"So, what’s up?" Hardie asks.

It’s Ruby who caught him on the way back before he headed home, sending Eugene on ahead.

"That’s what I want to know," she says. "You’ve been looking at me like I grew another head."

A grimace from the man beside her. He glances out over the darkened water.

"Here I thought I was keeping it to myself."

Ruby laughs.

"Turns out you’re a shit actor."

He pushes his hands into his jean pockets. It’s not the body language she associates with him. It’s obvious he’d like to avoid the entire subject.

" _That_ I already knew," he says with a no-harm grin. Then, he looks consternated. "Look, it’s not any of my business."

She’s sure Hardie means well, but Ruby’s put together too many theories not to ask for peace of mind.

"That cop have something to say about me?"

Hardie isn’t surprised she knows, but word travels especially fast in Martinaise. The man’s look grows grim.

"It’s what he didn’t say about you. Something you gave the dodge, too. The reason they let you off the hook."

Ruby feels queasy. She can taste the gun in her mouth, metallic, bitter. Her eyes were closed and she had the willpower. She’s seen what happens to people who betray M. Burnt bodies that had tires full of gasoline pushed down around their shoulders and set alight, the corpses of men and women who died screaming. 

It was the closest she’d ever come, and she’d come close before.

"You’re right," she says. "That’s none of your business."

"And that’s fine, as long as it doesn’t bite me in the ass."

His eyes say he’d rather press her. He’d rather know. That he’s not used to being cut out of the loop. 

She remembers him before she split, towering over her, voice hard, demanding. 

He wanted to know what she was hiding. It made sense that he did, he wanted to know if it was a threat to him and his men. But she’d heard too many horror stories about Harry Du Bois. She couldn’t tell him, even when she hadn’t been sure if he’d get physical with her.

He didn’t, but his angry insistence along with his massive build made the thought terrifying in the moment. She always thought she could handle herself, but she had no chance if he got aggressive.

"It won’t come back to you," she swears, not afraid of him anymore, now. She can be confident it won’t, too. "It’s private," she says. "We had one of those human moments."

Hardie spends another minute turning it over. When he looks at her again he looks at her differently.

"You’re not pregnant, though? Because that doesn’t fit."

Now, her laughter’s uncontrollable. She covers her mouth, unbelieving, eyes bright. 

Of all the things he could have prioritized, she didn’t see it coming!

" _God_ , no. I am one hundred percent _not_ pregnant."

It’s the first time she’s seen him second guess himself, self-conscious. 

"Sorry, Ruby. I just…"

She wipes her eyes, still smiling ear to ear.

"You’d cut a girl some slack if she was pregnant. That’s not a bad instinct."

His broad shoulders relax as he gets back on even footing. He nods, probably glad the joke wasn’t his conclusion.

"Guess I would."

Laughter calmed to a chuckle, she eyes him playfully.

"You and the cop have fun, or is _that_ private?"

He pulls a hand out of his pocket to scratch the bridge of his nose and then they’re swinging at his sides, his self assurance restored.

"We did. _I_ did. I’m guessing he did. He didn’t rate me," he says, candidly. He wets his lips in a thoughtful way. "You know what, though? I could get used to him. You guys don’t have rules against that, right?"

She feels like he could use some kind of help with this whole sexuality thing, but while they’re getting closer she’s just not close enough yet to intrude.

"Hardie, it’s ‘51. People can fuck whoever they want."

In a way, she’s already involved herself in this, just two nights ago.

_She sits in her usual spot, overseeing the Union box. After a busy day trafficking and coordinating, her night just started._

_Most of the Hardies are here tonight. Zdeno isn’t back yet, out making a late delivery. She doesn’t know where Hardie is._

_Maxime is already into his third beer, two empty cans sitting in front of him, but she suspects he showed up to the Whirling first._

_"Where’s the bossman?" she asks._

_Eugene grins, sipping his usual — vegetable juice, blended up special at the bar. His guitar lies on the table beside him._

_"Got a date."_

_That’s news._

_"Anybody we know?" Maxime asks._

_Alain scowls into his own beer._

_"Nah, he’s got a thing for this fucking cop. Good guy. A goddamn fucking cop, though."_

_The Mesque takes a long drink, like he can wash away the bad taste._

_Ruby’s surprised, but then from the boasting way Hardie talked about his night it had been obvious he enjoyed himself._

_"One of the cops that went up against Krenel, right?" Bryce says. "I heard they hooked up."_

_Léandre gets a look familiar to Ruby: the ‘confused heterosexual’ look._

_"Titus is gay?"_

_Eugene shrugs._

_"He’s not. Not that it matters. We’re a queer friendly organization." He raises his juice to Ruby. "He just likes this cop."_

_"Some people are flexible. It’s actually pretty normal," Ruby says, recognizing she’s put on that patient and nonthreatening voice it’s a habit to fall back on when dealing with confused heterosexuals._

_"So he’s like a part time gay?" Maxime asks, seriously._

_It’s sweet, she thinks, how these guys are trying._

_It’s a sign of how much respect Hardie commands that nobody but Kilian looks especially disturbed. Confused, totally, but not repulsed. She’s seen worse._

_"_ Something _like that," she says. "Or maybe he just likes the one guy. I haven’t asked him."_

_Kilian shifts restlessly in his seat, turning his beer can in his hand._

_"Hard to wrap my head around. He’s just not…" He struggles for the words. "I know we’re not saying he’s _gay_ , but he doesn’t have that look."_

_Eugene leans forward with a look of understanding and Ruby lets him field it. Since she’s joined up, he’s always been the most progressive — not to say Hardie doesn’t try._

_"Gay people don’t have a ‘look’," he explains. Pauses. Adds needlingly: "You just didn’t know all the ones you’ve met who don’t go in for the dress code were gay."_

_Kilian looks pinched. Ruby doesn’t read him as an active bigot, but he’s having trouble._

_"Gonna have to sit with that one."_

_Bryce brightens up, zeroing in on his discomfort._

_"Whole harbor could be gay and you’d never know it."_

_"How about you, Bryce?" Léandre asks, sounding genuine._

_With Glen gone, Bryce is closest to Hardie in size. It looks like Léandre is just naive enough to be trying to make actually-nonsensical connections._

_Bryce guffaws._

_"Not me. My sister, though."_

_Ruby takes a drink to avoid showing her interest._

_She’s seen Bryce’s sister, brunette and country in that Martinaise way, more so than Bryce. Not every girl around town in flannel and ripped, paint splattered jeans is a lesbian. Kendra, strong shoulders and eight kilometers of legs, apparently is._

_She’s looking for somewhere to land her gaze and it lands on Alain, whose expression hasn’t stopped threatening his beer with violence._

_"Alain," she coaxes, "some people are cops."_

_She sympathizes, but there’s nothing they can do._

_"They don’t have to be," he says, voice flinty. "That’s a choice they make." His expression subsides into resignation, letting his beer off the hook. "Doesn’t matter. The guy still saved my life."_

Overall, she’s happy with the new boys. She doesn’t see them causing Hardie any trouble, even if Kilian has to work through some prejudice. Bryce and Léandre are part of the younger generation, and despite his tough attitude Maxime seemed to take it as an intellectual puzzle.

"Wherever you take this, we’ll have your back."

Hardie scoffs.

"You guys were talking about me, weren’t you?"

Ruby warms to the implicit question of how they took it. Anybody would want to know how their close associates are dealing with their sexual experimentation. People are like that.

"Not in a bad way. People mostly pin you as ‘giant heterosexual longshoreman.’ There were some questions."

Hardie shrugs it off.

"They’re not wrong. I’m just seeing where it goes."

Ruby’s seen this before, among the besmerties. Guys so sure about their heterosexuality they get involved with other guys with zero idea that might not be the perfect description for them.

It’s cute. And, hey, it’s not hurting anybody. 

She thinks she can save the discussion for a few months down the road. Hardie clearly is not at risk of an identity crisis. And, besides, maybe the cop will field it.

\----

**Friday, 16 April ‘51**

Harry sees nothing. The light finds his eyes, but the signals aren’t processed. Without warning, he plunged deep within his own internal world, its volume overwhelming.

AUTHORITY: You bent and accepted the appointment. Pathetic.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Party over. Risperizole will turn the lights out forever.

DRAMA: This is the end.

INLAND EMPIRE: All the stars will go out, one by one.

SAVOIR FAIRE: You won’t be on the hustle anymore once you’re in the pocket of big pharma.

CONCEPTUALIZATION: You’ll be reduced from a symphony orchestra to a single blunt instrument.

HALF LIGHT: You’ll be small. Vulnerable.

COMPOSURE: You’re afraid.

RHETORIC: You’ve never taken an antipsychotic. This is all speculation.

ENCYCLOPEDIA: Formerly known as major tranquilizers and neuroleptics, antipsychotic drugs block receptors in the dopaminergic pathways of the brain, dampening the effect of dopamine released in these pathways. Psychotic episodes are associated with decreased dopamine release in the prefrontal cortex and excess dopamine release in other pathways. Antipsychotics do not necessarily nullify voices and delusions, but may help the patient distinguish them from reality.

LOGIC: You’ve researched antipsychotics because you’ve considered treatment before.

VOLITION: Listen to Bookhead. Your mental skills could be refined.

PERCEPTION (Hearing): Two voices intrude on the periphery of your consciousness. The first is the most familiar. "How long do we let him sit here? When do we say something?" The second provokes emotion. "It doesn’t hurt to give him time. Whatever you do, don’t raise your voice with him."

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Your latest fugue is alarming. They’re relieved to have each other to turn to.

Harry blinks heavily, bringing the office around him back into focus. Skin damp with sweat, the pounding of his anxious heart has already begun to subside.

Anxiety episode backgrounded, he can see the conclusion. He looks up at the two men watching him with matching drawn expressions of concern, Kim from his desk chair and Jean sitting beside him, oriented toward him, leg up, ankle crossing his thigh.

"I’ve done this before. I’ve thought about getting treatment. And then I chickened out."

Jean’s frown only deepens, his grey eyes fixed on Harry with clear concern.

"That, right there. What the hell happens to you when you do that, Harry?"

"Pretty sure that was an anxiety episode from the alcohol withdrawal," Harry points out, for the record. "Doesn’t mean it was quiet in my head. I heard a lot of different opinions. Fear mongering, mostly. Because they’re me. Then I pinned down what was going on." He can see horror growing behind the concern. "It’s not all bad, Jean. I get a lot of useful information out of them on the beat."

"I believe I speak for Lieutenant Vicquemare as well when I say it will take time to get used to the idea this is normal for you."

Kim looks composed, and he reads it, too. Harry’s not surprised. Kim has had a week to think things over. Jean hasn’t had twenty-four hours.

He focuses on beating back his own anxiety, putting on a smile for the former partner he can’t remember but who he’s no stranger to.

"I’m the same guy. This is just how I think. You didn’t think my normal was like anybody else’s, did you?"

Jean seems preoccupied. All of Harry is telling him Jean’s depression has him in its grip.

PAIN THRESHOLD: Faced with the fact this is nothing he can fight, there’s only his despair.

"I don’t know what I thought. I could have thought anything. It wasn’t this."

"You thought he was a psychopath," Kim deadpans. "You should be relieved. Psychosis is much better understood."

Jean flinches out of his private preoccupation, startled Kim can joke.

"Oh, très drôle."

"Kim gets it," Harry piles on. He’s satisfied with Jean’s scoff.

Kim transfers his attention to Harry with the arch of a single brow.

"Be apprised I do not, actually, ‘get it’."

RHETORIC: Find an example for them.

Harry casts about.

"It’s why I have trouble with desk work. It’s hard to keep them all on task when I’m bored."

Jean’s eyes widen. His face contorts into a scowl.

"You’re shitting me, Harry. You’re _already_ using this to try and get out of doing your job?"

EMPATHY: He’s more comfortable seeing you in the role of a fuckup than mentally ill.

"He’s been creating as much work as he completes for three weeks," Kim admits.

"God, what, you’ve got another, what? One, two weeks. You know if you weren’t…" — dying. If you weren’t a smoker, and dying, your wound would heal faster — "Alright. Hold on. How about this: We let you look at some cold cases, see what you make of them. Does that sound more your speed?"

VOLITION: This is an area everyone can contribute to.

"That sounds a lot more my speed."

Kim regards Vicquemare with pleasant surprise.

"It’s a sound idea, Lieutenant." —I wish either of us had thought of it sooner to stop the attrition.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: They already make natural, effective partners. You can only hope to build a similar rapport with your new partner.

\----

There’s a routine to Ingolf showing up to conference. Titus closing the door behind him and flashing his fingers for how many days since he’s swept the house for bugs — today, one.

He’d like to sweep daily, but it takes some time out of his day. He doesn’t have a crew like Evrart to do it for him, just a handheld RF bug detector.

Ingolf digs his own out of his pocket and they sweep the house together. The sweep comes up clean. It didn’t, once, but that was a couple weeks ago.

Ingolf heads for the small dining room, closing the blinds, while Titus breaks out a couple of beers from the fridge. The beers are a part of their routine, too, even if today it’s 10 AM.

Despite the dining room’s limited size, the relatively spare table has five mismatched chairs packed around it. If he only had his boys over they could drink in the living room, but sometimes he invites Tibbs, and Tibbs has picked up a wife and added three kids, the oldest seven, the youngest a newborn infant. 

It’s become the main reason Tibbs will never join his posse, but Titus can’t just let up pestering his brother after dedicating so many years to it. Tibbs likes to tell him to be thankful they aren’t identical because he wouldn’t be able to stand himself.

Ingolf picks a chair and takes his seat. Titus isn’t sure exactly where he lives. Somewhere in Le Jardin with his Revacholian wife, Marie-Helene. 

They’ve talked about their shared experiences as immigrants, although the circumstances of their arrival bore zero resemblance. Titus immigrated into poverty. Ingolf left his relatively comfortable life in Vaasa for a life in an even more comfortable Revacholian banlieue. Adapting to Revachol’s diversity as a stranger to its dominant language and leaving stability to learn to navigate the greys of its governance and lack thereof still held similarities.

Titus doesn’t know how he feels about the best positioned man in the organization outside the Claires themselves being staff and being divorced from the everyday struggles of Martinaise. Except he _is_ Vaasan. He was born to social democracy. Titus has never seen the guy get heated except when they talk the economic exploitation of Revachol by the Coalition.

Titus passes him his beer and takes a seat across from him. They trade the usual small talk. How the Burning Rhinos are doing, how the hockey season in Katlan isola is wrapping up, how Marie-Helene is doing and a quirky anecdote or two from their respective surveillance heavy positions.

They move to more politically heavy subjects. Ingolf wouldn’t, after all, come by just to drink.

"There’s good news and bad news. We’ve secured more key contracts. FALN was too eager to keep their goods moving to stay loyal to Wild Pines. They’re big enough they know they’ll take them back if the harbor changes hands," he says. 

"We’re still having difficulty in the machine manufacturing sector. It wasn’t clear why there was so much trouble until now. Wild Pines is subsidizing companies not to ship to Revachol. They’re not just trying to get public pressure against us, they’re trying to cut off our ability to repair our own machines."

He’s not really here about this, though, because as he’s talking he’s producing a piece of paper from his jacket’s inner pocket. It must be good if the bug sweep wasn’t enough.

"Sons of bitches. Of course I wanna know what’s going on but damn if it doesn’t kill me there’s nothing I can do," Titus says, voice loud enough to mask the sound of a single sheet of paper sliding across the table.

An arrest order. It’s a first. He recognizes the name — he’s worked long hours beside the guy — and with it the fact the guy could be armed. 

Ingolf’s team has passed on information about gang activity in the past. Inaugurating their detention system hits different. Dealing with corporate espionage used to mean discharging people from the Union. Now, Evrart wants them scared.

It doesn’t matter if Titus likes the idea or not, it only matters if he has the backbone for it. It’s a long way off from the ugliest thing he’s done.

He leaves the paper sitting there, silent.

One hand resting loosely around his sweating beer, Ingolf tilts his head, startlingly pale blue eyes piercing.

"I want to talk to you about the RCM officer."

Titus holds up his hand peaceably.

"And I’m not interested in having that talk. You know I’m not feeding the Moralintern our business. I’d put him out on his ass if he brought the RCM up in my house."

From the resolve on Ingolf’s face, it won’t be that easy. 

"There’s a limited number of people who understand what led up to the incident with Krenel, and he’s one of them," the man continues in the same professionally distanced tone.

Electricity prickles through Titus. His racing mind tells him he’s not being accused of anything. There’s sensitive information lying right there on his own table in front of him.

"The hell do you mean by that?"

Ingolf’s face remains as stony as he’s ever seen it.

"We lost four Union men because you were seduced by an Oranjese spy."

Titus’ chest lurches with the sudden acceleration of his pulse. His fist tightens around his beer bottle, glass. He barely holds off shattering it. The air feels sharp and cold in his nostrils.

He’s angry.

He could punch this guy, sitting there talking like he killed his own boys. Like all that blood spilled on the pavement’s on his hands. As if he could’ve—

"You think I…" 

He can’t form the thought. Can’t let it sink in. 

There’s only fury.

"Where the _fuck_ were you while the fucking _Oranjese spy_ was holed up in the Whirling?"

Ingolf’s the only thing he sees, like the whole world disappeared except the determined set of the Vaasan's jaw.

Ingolf’s scared, though. Yeah, he’s a little scared. Titus has seen it in enough men.

He should be, too. Titus killed enough of them.

"I didn’t accurately assess the threat. The whole thing was shit from beginning to end. We can’t afford to have it happen again."

He’s trying to work on him with those placating tones. It’s enough to remind him this is an ally, maybe even a friend, but not enough to stopper the rage he set loose.

Titus hasn’t had something stab under his skin and burst that core of anger since—

Since the can opener. Since before the mercs gunned his boys down.

He’s breathing like a bull. He doesn’t trust himself to talk, yet.

"Titus. I have to do my job. I need you to understand the facts."

The rush has started dying off. It’s starting to piece itself together. 

Klaasje fucked him. Fucked him over. It unfolded in slow motion and not a lot of people are in the position to put all the pieces together. But Kim? He _does_ know how badly Titus misread the situation, and half of it because of his dick.

Doesn’t add up, though. Just doesn’t add up.

"You show me the fucking evidence he’s a risk and I’ll drop him. I’ve got no fucking reason to be paranoid."

The fear in Ingolf has sloughed off. The man shows fight, leaning forward, calm and steady.

"I can’t say the same. You’re already defending him and you’ve slept with him twice."

Titus doesn’t take well to the challenge, almost goes back off his head.

" _That’s—_ "

The impact of his fist shakes the table so hard he feels its joints giving and it jumps against the floor.

It’s enough to shake him out of his temper. 

Enough for the saner part of himself not tuned to fight for survival to let him know Ingolf’s right.

Not about Kim, no, but about the part that set him off in the first place.

"...shit."

He fell for her. He fell for her and he had them paying for her room, running her errands, collaborating with her to stage a murder.

He was a fucking idiot and it got his men killed.

It almost got him killed, if not for Kim and his crazy buddy with the improvised explosive.

It almost got the cops killed, too. Almost got Kim killed. The bitch barely missed and now Glen’s dead.

He’s thinking back to that hotel room, now. That image of Kim still etched in his mind, standing over him shirtless with hard, then apologetic eyes. And he still hasn’t sorted what he knew then.

Glen’s dead and Kim’s alive. 

And Glen’s dead because Kim’s alive.

There’s no sorting it whenever his mind latches onto it. It’s a fact. It’s what happened. Nobody chose it.

"There’s something else going on," Ingolf prompts, voice patient. 

He’d be willing to sit awhile with him. They’ve just got shit jobs. He’s not his enemy.

Titus measures him up, speaking real careful.

"Goddamn right there is. I lost my best friend. Twenty-one years. Don’t make me spell it out."

Ingolf goes still, at first, except for the eyes searching Titus’s face. Titus sees the man starting to piece things together.

Evrart and Edgar aren’t all knowing. They need their whole network to keep the information coming. This is the guy who’s been the lynchpin for going on six years.

Titus doesn’t expect him to understand the hard part, the incalculable trade, but he gave him enough there for him to make some assumptions about where Titus suddenly got keen on a gay man.

Maybe Titus doesn’t know about Glen’s sex life outside the sex they had, but odds are Glen had one and he hooked up in town enough Ingolf probably knows. If he ever used a phone about it the odds are even higher. And not like Glen could hide he’s gay to save his life, anyway.

Twenty-one years. It’s a lot of time to experiment with your closest friend.

Ingolf grimaces. Not like he’s disgusted, but like he doesn’t like complicated. He doesn’t need to know more than he already does to see that it’s complicated.

He drinks his beer.

"...I see. We’ll play it by ear."

"Kim said he left the 57th for the 41st. You find out he was lying about that, you let me know," Titus tells him.

If he happened to be lying about that, Titus would start with being real displeased.

They finish their beers, not much in the mood to talk, both thinking. 

Titus sees him out.

The arrest order has everything he needs to know on it. Shifts, favorite watering hole, home address. 

He’s a Martinaise boy. Pisses Titus off and makes it easy. If he wasn’t, they’d be crossing the 57th. They may start, but not today.

He rounds up Alain and Maxime. They get an MC from the harbor. Wait out for him to walk home. The gun doesn’t factor in. He tries to run, though. Maxime gets him, gets a few good ones in. The guy doesn’t fight about getting in the back of the MC after that. 

Titus likes Maxime alright. Alain was right. He’s got a lot of fight. Titus thought maybe he could be a little bigger, but seeing him drop a guy puts that to rest.

They hand their detainee off at what used to be a pretty nice piece of real estate, a two story joint with new bars on the windows and some interior remodeling.

Titus is on his own after that. He’s not ready to go home. 

He stops by Frittte, gets himself a bottle of spiced rum — the kind Glen liked for slow drinking. Not expensive shit, but good for sipping. You don’t need flavor for what you put straight back.

He stops by the cemetery. The grass has started sprouting up but hasn’t grown over the graves, yet. 

There’s nothing to say. He pours one out for Theo, for Angie, for Shanky. He stands a little while longer looking at the dirt sitting heavy on Glen. Pours one out, too. 

He heads home.

On the couch, the rest of the bottle is for him.

He can’t think past the hard reality of the ground, six feet of it packed between him and what’s left of Glen. It’s rammed through his brain like a spike, same as the thud when that first shovel of soil landed heavy on Glen’s coffin. 

There’s no reaching him, now. There’s just a body in a casket rotting in the cold ground. It’s a nicer casket than Glen might have expected, paid courtesy of Evrart. If it was up to Titus, Alain and Eugene to scrape up for it it wouldn’t have been more than a cheap pinewood box. Glen had nobody else.

Dennis had his mom, and Angus had family, Theo had the respect of the community. Glen hadn’t talked to his parents in nineteen years. They didn’t make the funeral. Probably on account of his teenage rage scaring the shit out of them and how he split with them at seventeen after they found out he had a gun.

When he’s got enough rum in him — molasses sweet and licorice and pepper in there, can’t tell what else — he can think as far back as the limp body sprawled on the tile. It was already none of Glen, Glen loud and tense, funny and friendly with the guys, and angry and cruel.

He hasn’t kept track of the days. There’s before and after. Before, he had the most important person in his life to drink with, practice rugby and box with, sit all morning in a stand with waiting to draw a bead on a deer, have the dumbest conversations of his life with and the best, every once in awhile fuck around with. After, there’s half of him missing and nothing to do about it.

And Ingolf says he killed him. He’s not fucking wrong, either. If he’d kept his dick out of that bitch maybe he would’ve seen something was up. But damn, he hadn’t been pulling pussy like that real often as the years started to drag and he was a fucking idiot, a sucker for thinking a chick like that would need him to rescue her from her past and herself like some kind of hero.

He eyes the bottle of rum. He can put the rest of it away, no harm, with what he already poured out, and he does. It’s an inconvenience how much it takes to get him drunk and keep him there.

He sets the bottle on the floor beside him, closes his eyes, and thinks about the last time with Glen, a couple weeks before he was gone. Glen sinking his teeth in the meat of his shoulder as Titus’ hips stuttered against him, the pain making him shout if it wasn’t the orgasm, already — god yes, he came hard — hand fisted in Glen’s hair yanking spasmodically.

Titus lying heavy on him, cussing — full weight on Glen, the buff bastard — hips making tiny, needy pushes through the aftermath, Glen’s thick legs still wrapped around him. Glen laughing.

Glen had that rule: No kissing. Kissing’s for faggots. (Big opinion from somebody with his ass leaking cum.) So, Titus rolled off him, touching his own shoulder out of habit of checking for blood but already knowing it’s just tender.

Glen got impatient, elbowed him in the side.

"Jerk me off. Don’t be an asshole."

He looked annoyed he even had to ask, and then he forgot about it once Titus took him up.

Glen had a lot of rules about what made sex gay and what made you a faggot and what got you punched. They didn’t always make sense, but Titus didn’t argue them — crossed the line, sometimes, but didn’t argue.

Eating cum made you a faggot, but didn’t get you punched. Titus didn’t feel like getting yelled at, though, so he let it be, pearl fluid wet on Glen’s abs. 

He’d push Glen’s boundaries but he never tried throwing one back at him. Like that he liked Glen’s come, liked that filthy feeling of it on his tongue, and he obviously wasn’t a "faggot." (Not that there’d be anything fucking wrong with that.) 

He just didn’t know what Glen would _do_. He never actually wanted to find out. Might ruin what they had going: a friendly, comfortable routine.

Any time he screwed with that he seemed to get the short end. _Especially_ if he tried to get some kind of intimate, like mouth to mouth.

The fact he fell hard for Klaasje when he had an outlet for sex only seems mixed up in retrospect. Of course he fucked other people. Who’d expect him to get by on Glen being in the mood? He’s known some crazy women, but none of them tying him up in insane particulars he might get physically attacked for testing.

He’s only grasping for something, anything, to show him how he could’ve dodged Klaasje.

She’d been hot. She’d been wet. Those slim little fingers putting pills on his tongue. She kissed him. She had fierce, manicured fingernails that clawed at his skin and made those perfect, pleading cries.

She’d wrapped it all up in the idea he could save her. 

It either _was_ his fault, or the goddamn psycho whore stripped him raw and had him helpless.

It had to be his fault. Somewhere in there he must have made a choice.

It’s different with Kim, isn’t it? He remembers the moment there at the Whirling when he made the choice. Kim’s a goddamn cop but Titus knows it and he’s not about to start spilling shit he could use to make a conviction to him in bed, right?

Kim didn’t choose for Glen to take those bullets. He’d been trying to save their lives. Glen’s life. It was just one of those fucking things, a piece of the fucked up of all their everyday habit of staring down the barrels of some psychos’ guns.

He’s not supposed to believe Kim’s push and pull shit is an act, is he? Because it’d be some choice of act. Convincing somebody you’re not real motivated to act close with them unless you’re blitzed on shell shock, or booze, or a dicking isn’t a normal plan for a seduction.

He misses Glen and, yeah, who knows how much of that is pushing him to go after a guy. He should keep an eye on that. Like he’s checking himself right now. Drunk, but still.

If he wants to make room in that body for his cock it’s nobody’s business but Kim’s.

—thinking about sex has him a little aroused, but not feeling horny.

He lets himself drift to something entirely different. Good memories of times with Glen. Some of them physical but none of them about their cocks.


	6. Chapter 6

**Monday, 19 April ‘51**

Kim never should have gambled with twenty years of hard work.

When Kim was twenty-three, serving on the Juvenile Crime Unit made perfect sense. He had expected and failed to start gaining muscle mass at seventeen, even as he picked up regular work as a mechanic. The ten to sixteen year olds he’d be responsible for would see him as something closer to a peer. They would be less respectful but more forthcoming.

He had just come out of his own rebellious phase, the misery of the world around him fueling a fuck all attitude before it fueled a desire to alleviate the misery of others.

He understood the pressures of poverty and futurelessness and the kick of illicit thrills even at the expense of a loving foster parent — let alone in the face of neglect. He thought his ability to relate to them would make it easy to help them.

Starting five, but intensifying on ten years later it became mortifying. He still weighed sixty-one kilos and could pass as a sixteen year old. He had grown up, but no one at Precinct 24 noticed. The casual attitudes of others toward him grated on his professional pride. Worse than that, he still fought every day to demand respect from children, walking to work to subject himself to their unending condescension.

He slowly calcified, publicly eschewing anything that didn’t reflect maturity and sophistication and projecting severity and composure to compensate for his body, stuck in time. Beneath it, the social anxiety that dogged him since his childhood sharpened itself on the whetstone of his striving until his private life was shambles.

After fifteen years he finally received a promotion, recognition, and a fresh start in homicide in a precinct mostly harbor that was thankfully devoid of children. The relief was his only reward. The circumstances of his success had been so excruciatingly embarrassing he didn’t feel like celebrating.

His recent transfer to Precinct 41 came under different circumstances. Though still haunted by Dom’s recent death, he had co-workers enthused to have him who to his surprise knew him better by his reputation of conscientiousness at the 57th, and most strikingly had the respect of the legendary Ptolemy Pryce. For the first time in his career he felt like the dignified officer of the RCM he had imagined himself becoming twenty years ago.

The case file on Vicquemare’s desk looks like the hollow black barrel of a gun.

A brown manila folder of documents pertaining to the murder of Forewoman Tiphaine Holly on the orders of Edgar Claire, demanding he adjudicate over Martinaise.

He has to leave this meeting, request an interview with the captain he idolizes, and confess his mortifying error.

It’s worse because he’s thinking about Dom, trapped with a haunting feeling that he’s letting his deceased partner down. Dom worked for years to help him be the detective he sought to be. Four months without him and somehow he’s put himself in an unacceptable situation.

“I’m afraid I’ll be unable to consult on the matter,” Trant is saying before an audience of the rest of C-Wing. “As I expressed in Martinaise, I have to remain neutral in relation to the Débardeur’s Union. As much as I dearly value my relationship with the RCM my personal value would be impacted if I adopt a position besides political neutrality.”

Vicquemare wears a typically unimpressed expression tailored for Trant’s equivocating.

“The fact that you’re a pinko commie has nothing to do with it.”

“Lieutenant Vicquemare, I assure you I am quite genuine and not acting on the basis of being a ‘pinko commie.’ With no disrespect to you, Harry. I personally support your right to freely express and exercise yours and any political orientation and don’t approve of the lieutenant’s derogatory language.”

Harry grins his insinuating Guillaume le Million grin. It comes and goes, now, but he doesn’t smile any other way.

“It’s fine, Trant. I’m not a pinko commie. I’m fully committed to the intellectual inheritance of Father Mazov.”

Vicquemare’s expression remains unchanged.

“I apologize, Trant, you don’t sound like a communist sympathizer at all.”

“I do understand the motivations of Mazovian communists and could be said to sympathize with them as far as—“

“Trant! I don’t care. We’ll survive without you. Get out of here before you’re ‘compromised.’”

Trant’s departure leaves Harry, Officer Judit Minot, Sergeant Guillermo Rosales, recently promoted former junior officer Chad Tilbrook, and officers Hercule Courtemanche and Coralie Wescott standing or sitting in Vicquemare’s office.

“Lieutenant Kitsuragi, do you want to explain the present situation in Martinaise to our new officers?” Vicquemare prompts.

Kim really wants to do anything but. However, he permits himself a slight smile and dutifully recounts the recent conflict between the Union and Wild Pines, the circumstances under which the alleged assassination of Tiphaine Holly came to light, and the real physical danger of Union members perceiving the investigation as a Moralintern intervention on behalf of Wild Pines.

It makes no difference, he thinks privately, that the Moralintern is no doubt deeply invested in this investigation into Edgar Claire.

“You can see the situation we’re faced with is complex,” Vicquemare says. “While two officers will be assigned to the handling of the case, I want the wing to be prepared for extenuating circumstances.”

Kim recognizes his time to interject, while maintaining his composure.

“Lieutenant Vicquemare, before we assign the officers to take point, there’s something I’d like to discuss privately with Captain Pryce.”

Vicquemare looks surprised.

“Hmm? Of course. We’ll reconvene this later, then.”

With their subordinates dismissed, Vicquemare assesses him both concern and curiosity.

“Is this about the errands you ran for the Claires? I admit I’m curious why the case was passed down to C-Wing.”

“No. I don’t believe we can be accused of partiality. We ran ‘errands’ for Joyce Messier, as well. It was the cost of doing business in Martinaise,” Kim says. 

He can’t avoid that his partner is still waiting for an explanation. 

“My apologies, lieutenant. This is truly a discussion for Pryce.”

Vicquemare folds his arms, but he nods.

“Alright. Whatever you think is best, Kitsuragi.”

\----

Kim stands straight backed in front of the captain’s desk, arms folded behind him, face impassive, breathing evenly regardless of his high strung nerves.

Phantom images he’d never entertain at work slide through his mind, hands hot on his body and his hips parted, a weight over him and lips latched to his.

Captain Pryce is settled back in his modest, dark green leather chair, surveying him in appraisal.

“I assume this has to do with the file I passed on to your partner this morning.”

Kim discovers he isn’t prepared to articulate the issue, unaccustomed to mortifying himself.

“It does. This is difficult for me to admit.”

“Take all the time you need, lieutenant.”

Pryce gives him a minute with his thoughts by way of opening the dark wooden humidor on his desk and appraising the row of cigars within. 

He selects one and looks to Kim in question. 

As much as an infusion of nicotine would settle his anxieties, Kim shakes his head.

“No thank you.”

Pryce nods. He closes the box and goes through the motions of lighting the tightly packed, mahogany colored roll of leaves, clipping the tapered end and placing the cigar between his lips. He strikes a match and roasts the cigar over it, turning it in his fingers, heating it subtly before bringing the flame closer to bring it to life.

The captain exhales a plume of smoke.

The ritual of the display has the effect intended. 

Despite the anxiety invisibly swarming in his body, Kim has had time to imagine actually producing the words that now come to his lips.

“The truth is, I’ve been in a physical relationship with Titus Hardie. I’m clearly aware of his involvement in illicit activities. I have no excuse for my conduct.”

Pryce considers him. He nods. 

“No excuse, but you have a reason.”

The words cut to the point. The captain doesn’t care about excruciating details, he’s zeroed in on the salient factor: motive.

As unacceptable as Kim’s behavior is to himself, it’s hardly the worst thing Pryce has heard from one of his officers, Kim thinks. The man has been with the RCM forty years.

There’s no point in equivocating.

“We experienced a life or death conflict. We developed a sense of camaraderie, and I genuinely believe protecting the people of his district is his foremost motivation.” That’s all true. “I enjoy his company,” he concludes. It is, in the end, what decided the matter the second time.

The captain slowly enjoys his cigar, leaving Kim to punish himself, his nerves giving way to the burn of self scorn.

“I understand that you hold yourself to a high standard of professional conduct. Not all my officers would bring this to my office. The RCM is blind in Martinaise,” Pryce says, releasing him from gravity.

Kim begins to realize the man’s relaxation isn’t pretense. It’s unlikely he’ll be reprimanded.

“I thought I had been separated from the situation developing in the Industrial Harbor. It’s still no excuse.”

“But,” Pryce prompts with a detective’s patience.

He’s right. There’s something more.

“I had also assumed the political volatility of the situation with Edgar Claire would call for an undercover operation.”

The bald headed man nods again.

“Your former captain and I evaluated our options. If it was possible to carry out an undercover operation, we would have chosen that,” he says. “It’s impossible to investigate Martinaise in secret. The surveillance is too extensive. But by investigating in the open, there’s still a risk of losing officers to a potentially avoidable conflict.”

He sits forward in his chair, eyes narrowing, his expression hardening. He taps the air with his cigar, putting a target on Kim.

“I want you to return to Martinaise with Officer Du Bois because of your relationship with Titus Hardie. As long as you’re resolved to do your job, this doesn’t change things. Your report painted him as highly combative and lethally dangerous and his gunmen as equally prepared to exercise lethal force.

“You’re welcome to advise me whether it’s safer to send you with Du Bois or to send Vicquemare.”

Kim pauses to give the proposition the consideration it deserves. 

He can’t imagine either he or Titus will set aside their respective duties over sex. However, their recent intimacy has the potential to exercise a calming effect.

“It’s safer to send me. I’m sure we’ll be able to forego displaying weapons, and I can’t imagine an armed confrontation.” He can imagine them being bullied back into the Kineema — Harry’s a big man, Titus is bigger — but not a fatal conflict. “I couldn’t say the same if the Hardies were confronted with a stranger.”

The Hardies might not execute Harry, but as disturbing as the thought is that doesn’t mean they’re incapable of turning Lieutenant Vicquemare into a political message. Especially if he shoots his mouth off, and in Kim’s brief experience that’s something Vicquemare loves to do.

Evrart had Joyce Messier’s ship bugged. He heard her threat to ‘amputate and cauterize’ Martinaise. The Hardies are accustomed to dealing with threats to Martinaise in one way.

Kim banishes the thought and goes on:

“I don’t believe I have the leverage to convince Titus Hardie to inform on the Claires, but if it’s myself and Officer Du Bois, we shouldn’t end up in the canal. There’s no question in my mind he has no leverage to influence me.”

Pryce rolls the accumulated ash from the tip of his cigar, leaving exposed the glowing coal filler at its heart.

“That’s all I need to hear,” he says. He remains serious. “I want to be explicit that I won’t ask you to do anything lurid, Lieutenant Kitsuragi. Hardie was barely out of his teens when Dros assassinated Tiphaine Holly. I don’t anticipate the Hardies being key to this investigation. I think our shot at useful testimony died with Theo Faucheux.”

Kim is thankful his own resolve is already fully marshaled and the idea strikes him as no more than a passing absurdity.

“You have my gratitude. I have a difficult time picturing myself as a character in a pulp detective story,” he says dryly.

Captain Pryce smiles around his cigar.

“You’re dismissed, lieutenant.”

Kim leaves the office with something new buzzing at the edge of his mind. 

The reasoning Pryce presented was sound. There will be no investigation in Martinaise if they start piling up dead officers.

And still, he could have been more strict. 

Kim has the distinct impression the captain’s mind was thoroughly made up before he entered his office.

It’s impossible the man is on the take from small time mobsters like the Claires. Even if the famed captain, this son of a founding officer of the RCM, suddenly wanted money, however barely imaginable, he would side with the established Madre outfit against them.

The high possibility Pryce knows something more than Kim can’t be allowed to bother him. He knows his place in the RCM hierarchy and the job he’s expected to perform.

Maybe there’s a larger sting against Madre or Ahura Mazda key to cleaning up Jamrock that can’t be interrupted by giving the Moralintern the excuse to close in on the killing of a law officer by the Union. 

Maybe it’s something else entirely, but until he’s informed otherwise it’s none of Kim’s business.

He turns his thoughts to the fact Pryce just assigned him to work with Harry. He hadn’t seen it in their future, near or distant. 

He irresistibly looks forward to it. Not because of his great affection for the man, it’s better to try and keep that from coloring their working relationship, but because Kim’s possession of a patrol vehicle will free Harry from the desk duty he’s been so miserably chained to.

\----

**Wednesday, 21 April ‘51**

Harry was surprised when he and Kim drew the assignment to return to Martinaise.

They’re familiar faces there, but Jean had choice words for their cooperation with Evrart Claire, they declined and failed to apprehend Klaasje and Ruby, respectively, and seven people died in the mercenary tribunal they failed to prevent.

He was both surprised and so relieved it nearly moved him to tears, his chest constricting at the thought of escaping over a month of miserable confinement to hit the beat. This time, in Kim’s Kineema, maybe the only way he’d see the inside of an MC again.

HALF LIGHT: They’re sending you because you’re disposable.

VOLITION: He’s paranoid. Before you even start speculating, they’re also sending Lieutenant Kitsuragi.

It’s a thrill to know he’ll be working with Kim. In a temporary capacity, but it was in a temporary capacity the first time. Getting his feet wet after his inactivity and doing it with a fresh stranger would have been a lot to handle. He doesn’t have to worry about using the case to build a rapport with Kim, he already has one.

Plus, if he does end up crying Kim won’t be shocked.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: This is a chance to hit the ground running and marinate in your masculine vigor and you’re gonna cry about it, son?

The first step to investigating the murder of Tiphaine Holly was naming the case.

After good natured debate over the permissible amount of drama, the case was recorded in the ledger as KK41-2004.0945 (BLOOD IN THE CANAL).

The second step to investigating the murder of Tiphaine Holly was diving into twenty year old case files on the disappearance of Tiphaine Holly.

INLAND EMPIRE: The irresistible will of fate has prepared you to reopen cold cases.

These files didn’t belong to the RCM but to the Revachol Municipal Police, with whom Holly’s disappearance had been filed. Not that it was difficult to get their hands on them. The RMP weren’t interested in a pissing competition. 

ENCYCLOPEDIA: The Revachol Municipal Police operate under the oversight of the International Collaboration Police. They are a well funded organization serving those areas of Revachol amenable to Coalition administration immediately after the Antecentennial Revolution. Their ranking officers come from Coalition nations to assure their close loyalty. Unlike Jamrock, the banlieues they police have municipal governments.

AUTHORITY: They think investigating in Martinaise is beneath them. Show them how real policework is done.

LOGIC: Evrart Claire would accuse them of overstepping their jurisdiction, tying up the case for weeks or months.

Harry and Kim received the file yesterday.

The photo paperclipped to the photocopies of the original report showed a tall woman, plump, then, in her forties, but solidly built, her hair curled in the fashionable, over the top take on the flicked hairstyle just taking hold in the early 30’s, its ends rolling up to create a halo of curls around her head.

She didn’t look like Harry imagined from Dros’ story. He’d imagined a chubby little lady, a female Evrart Claire, a tiny drunken bourgeois woman with a big designer bag. He let the man’s scorn get into his head.

She wasn’t that. She’d been a dock worker like everyone else in the Union, elected from the ranks like every other foreman and forewoman. She still packed muscle. And of course she drank with the boys after work. 

He hadn’t thought twice about watching Titus Hardie and his crew spend their second week of paid leave drinking their paychecks. What kind of sexist assumptions had he been making?

He figured he needed to take one thing away from Dros, to go home and write a self critique. (He did, that night.)

The RMP investigation had turned up nothing. Holly left the harbor through Martinaise late in the evening and was never seen again. The fact that someone pretending to be her daughter called in for her the next day cast a pall of suspicion over the event, but the RMP found no evidence of a criminal or crime.

No one, police or civilian, could have imagined her being killed over a Union election. No one had pictured the money tied up in it for the Claires once they started embezzling dues. 

Hard won with the blood of the proletariat baptizing it’s establishment, the Union had been an honest organization and tool to prevent Revachol’s new masters from working its longshoremen to death in pursuit of the city’s former productivity.

Although, in Harry’s opinion, even if it’s not an honest organization it’s still an effective tool. The Claires, corrupt and vicious, are fearless strike leaders who’ve seized their objectives on three separate occasions and shared the profits with the men and women working the docks.

That doesn’t mean the Claires can go around murdering innocent women.

The single most important piece of information the document contained was documentation of the interview with Tiphaine Holly’s daughter, Madeline. It confirmed she hadn’t placed the phone call. More importantly, it provided enough information to contact her.

She consented to be interviewed today. 

It left them with a singular problem: matching the professional veneer expected of police officers in Betancourt. 

No better armed than the RCM due to the same Coalition weapons regulations, the reasonably salaried protectors of the property and persons of Revachol’s middle class dress with the uniformity of soldiers to inspire confidence in their charges.

Kim needed to press his official uniform. Harry needed something more. 

Kim sent him home, instructing him to produce his lieutenant’s cap and Perseus Black jacket and trousers. 

No one had thought to issue Harry a patrol uniform, assuming he wouldn’t wear it, and the dusty uniform framed in his living room is sizes too small.

Black, Kim said, would look more professional, anyway, and all they’re trying to do is match the dress standards of their bourgeois peers. (Kim may not have used the word bourgeois.) The fact these pieces were reserved for an officer above Harry’s station should go unremarked upon by someone in Revachol East who’s most likely never seen a modern RCM officer. Harry’s tarpaulin patrol cloak is too weathered to make the right impression, and pierced with three bullet holes, besides.

Kim joined Harry at his apartment shortly thereafter.

Harry put a folding chair from the coat closet down in the bathroom facing the shower. It still embarrassed him how rank the tiny room was despite how he kept scrubbing it. He washed his hair and pulled on the usual track pants and an undershirt, less of a task nowadays despite his nagging shoulder. Kim sharpened his scissors in the living room.

His first haircut. 

His beard is something else. His hands remember the motions of trimming it even if he never remembered trimming it before. His hair, though, was resting on his shoulders, and Kim informed him he had split ends. He hadn’t known what those were.

Steam still clouded the bathroom mirror as Kim took his position behind him and set to work, running a fine toothed comb through his hair. The scissors made a high, crisp noise like glass breaking under the sole of a boot. 

HAND/EYE COORDINATION: The lieutenant’s deft, artistic motions with the blades suggest long practice at cutting his own hair.

SAVOIR FAIRE: Style and savings at the same time. Smart. You’ve gotta convince him to do this on the regular.

Kim admonished him with _Hold your head straight_ and _Stay still,_ kicking up a funny, nervous feeling in his stomach — not unpleasant, and not erotic, tough to pin down.

“Sorry I can’t get the mold out of this place,” Harry said, staring at the dirty grout between the shower tiles.

“Yes, the humidity isn’t ideal,” Kim said. He launched into a question and answer session of recommendations that only made Harry’s stomach coil tighter. 

He finally recognized the sensation. It was the same feeling he got when he didn’t want to disappoint Kim, amped up by duration.

COMPOSURE: It would be incredible to disappoint someone with your hair.

PAIN THRESHOLD: You don’t believe you deserve to be taken care of.

Hair tamed, they moved on to the clothes problem.

“Are you supposed to tell me the Revachol Municipal Police go through this every day?” he joked as Kim made him dress and looked for holes in his uniform. 

He had gained a couple kilos around the middle since the RCM issued it. 

Kim tutted, checking the seams of the garments for extra fabric. Measuring tape appeared, Harry breathed through the revival of that nervous sensation as Kim quantified him in his notebook. Everything was whisked away to be let out and ironed.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: At this rate that’s as close as anybody’s gonna get to your balls.

Kim arrived at the station in his standard issue uniform this morning.

Harry has never seen Kim in Perseus Black — severe and slim, neat and angular — or wearing his service cap. Ideally, Kim’s sartorial perfection will draw attention from his own plush features.

SUGGESTION: Tell him how good he looks. He’ll appreciate being noticed.

COMPOSURE: Don’t do it. I can’t hold you together through that.

CONCEPTUALIZATION: The lieutenant will remain an unapproachable object of aesthetic pleasure.

He changes into his newly tailored suit in the locker room, pulling on his own cap. He trimmed his beard last night and shaved his jaw this morning. It’s as prepared as he gets.

He stops at the mirror. He looks like a lieutenant. An honest to god ranking officer of the RCM. He isn’t one, but for the first time he believes the person who used to inhabit the body had been.

It infuses him with fresh energy to bolster him against the constant assault of the withdrawal. 

He registers the doubletakes of his co-workers to see him emerge dressed in his new (old) threads.

PERCEPTION (Sight): Jean stops his discussion with Rosales, an expression of concentration transforming into one of stunned disorientation. His eyes search your face, his gaze finding no traction with your own. His brow contracts and he looks away.

EMPATHY: He hoped to see his friend and partner. There must have been occasions when he pulled on this uniform. That man is long gone.

The last thing Harry needs to do is address that. He’s sure Jean’s already trying to forget it.

He fixes his attention on Kim, who’s smiling in admiration of his own handiwork. Pleasure flushes Harry’s chest to be the object of his approval, even though all he did was hold still and let Kim operate.

VOLITION: You did more than that. You’re clean and sober. This is what it earns you.

“Ready to work?” Kim asks with a lift of his brows.

“Can’t wait,” Harry says.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: You’re one of them, again. An officer of the RCM, finally returning to the job you’re designed for. 

He’s never rode in the back of Kim’s Kineema. He hears the click of the ignition key. The combustion engine roars like a furnace behind him. The coils beneath him whine as electricity surges through them. They roll out of Precinct 41’s garage into the morning sunlight.

CONCEPTUALIZATION: This is the penultimate manifestation of wheel and undercarriage design that dates to prehistory.

SHIVERS: There will be one more permutation before the end of the world.

“You gonna put on the radio?”

He can’t hear Kim’s sigh over the sound of the motor. He can’t even see his shoulders fall through the white suede driver’s seat. He can only intuit these things from the pause.

“Fuck it,” Kim says. 

He punches the radio. The hammer of drums and the scream of guitars rush to fill the cabin.

Harry settles back in his seat and grins.

The motor carriage accelerates as they pull onto the 8/81.

INTERFACING: The ride is so smooth it’s impossible to know just how fast you’re going. The lieutenant handles the steering levers effortlessly. 

VISUAL CALCULUS: You are certain that you’re going illegally fast. You’re flying past the MCs around you.

RHETORIC: It’s only illegal when you’re not painted in RCM livery.

LOGIC: This level of subtle skill is most likely the product of training. Training that is not provided by the RCM. 

Harry leans forward in his seat, raising his voice over the volume of the MC and the radio.

“Where did you learn to drive like this, Kim?”

“In Faubourg, where I grew up.”

“Who from?”

“From my instructor.”

COMPOSURE: He isn’t interested in sharing his history of illegal speeding.

Harry wets his lips and tries one more.

“You know how to drift?”

“Of course I do.”

DRAMA: He vergeth upon offense.

EMPATHY: You touched his pride.

Harry lets it sit. He has enough information. It would be easy to learn to drift in the Industrial Harbor, but that would be extremely late in Kim’s love of cars. No precinct would allow him to take a Coupris 40 out to practice impractical stunt driving, nor the even more expensive Kineema. Therefore, he’s had access to other vehicles despite the poverty of Faubourg. The illegal street racing scene is the only possible avenue.

“How often did you win?”

“Thirty-four out of fifty-two.”

That’s about sixty-five percent of the time, Harry thinks. That’s not bad.

\----

Madeline Holly, her aerostatic crewman father never in the picture, lives in a pristine modern apartment building in Betancourt. There’s pane glass doors to glass balconies with polished steel rails. The walls are free of grime and stains.

It doesn’t feel like a place Kim belongs, although his high powered Kineema may still be the most valuable vehicle in the parking lot.

They’re buzzed in through the intercom system. The elevator with its polished, not unpleasant smelling interior provides a smooth, confidence inspiring ride to the sixth floor where the wide hallway sports an evenly stained wooden floor.

Madeline invites them into a well kept apartment decorated with furniture made of clean, angular lines. 

She’s tall, like her mother, and sturdily built. She could have been a débardeuse, but instead she informs them she’s a bank employee. Her manicured hands have never seen hard labor.

She’s forty-two years old. She had been twenty-two when her mother disappeared.

She offers them drinks, which they decline, and soon they’re sitting on her clean white couch.

“My mother moved to Betancourt in the twenties, so I didn’t grow up in Martinaise. Her terms as forewoman helped us afford an apartment, and I went to university on scholarship. I worked too, of course,” she tells them. “I was in my senior year when she disappeared. That’s why we were still sharing an apartment. I’m lucky the landlord let me out of the lease so I could move into a one bedroom I could afford.”

She’s not ashamed of her relative wealth, only explaining their cohabitation. Kim assumes he and Harry successfully don’t look poor.

Kim produces the photograph from where it’s tucked in the back of his notebook, passing the picture to Harry to pass to Madeline in her adjacent chair.

“That’s your mother, Tiphaine Holly?”

She looks closely at the picture, swallowing, pursing her painted lips, old sorrow in her eyes.

“Yes, this is my mother. This is one of the pictures I gave them twenty years ago.”

Harry leans forward, elbows resting on his knees, his focused expression one of natural compassion Kim couldn’t hope to produce.

Kim simply opens his notebook to a blank page and prepares his pen.

“The report says you called the RMP the evening of the last day of the elections, but you hadn’t seen your mother since the night before. You thought she might have been with a boyfriend?” Harry asks.

Madeline sets the photo on the coffee table in front of her, its centerpiece a white ceramic pot growing a spray of ferns.

She looks to Harry’s compassion with visible distress. Kim doesn’t need to be an empath to recognize her guilt. He’s seen that aspect of bereavement many times.

“I should have known something was wrong. She almost always called if she wasn’t coming home. She’d been so busy campaigning for the election and I didn’t want to bother her.”

“Was the election expected to be close?” Kim asks, softening his voice.

Madeline shifts her attention to him, her back straightening and expression firmining, resolve visibly strengthening.

Harry sits back, having successfully created an atmosphere of trust. Kim feels a fleeting envy.

“Much closer than she thought it would be. It started taking up all of her time,” Madeline says.

Harry cocks his head to the side.

“Was it normal for your mother to take chapter elections that seriously?”

Kim wonders how much he looks like Madeline when he and Harry are alone together in one apartment or the other, emotionally gravitating toward the understanding on offer.

“No,” the woman says. “She took the responsibility seriously but she’d always been friends with the other candidates.”

“What changed?” Harry prompts.

“One of the Claire brothers was running that year. I can’t remember his name. They both started with an E… She didn’t like him. I don’t think she liked either of them.”

Her expression has grown troubled, again, her attention turned inward as she searches her memory.

Kim helps keep the recollection flowing.

“Do you remember why?”

“She called him ‘slimey’—the one that was running, I mean.” Now, there’s a grim set to Madeline’s lips. “I still remember because mom cursed and drank like a docker but she never held anything against anybody.”

It’s Harry’s turn.

“When did she call him that?”

“Over the phone. To one of her friends. I don’t know who. Do you think the Claires have something to do with this?”

Kim lets Harry field this with his coaxing voice and magnetic attraction.

“That’s what we need you to tell us.”

“I don’t know, I… After the campaign started, she seemed so stressed all of the time. The only time she used to act like that was after bad accidents at the docks. Something was going on, but she never told me anything.”

Kim diligently records her words, shorthand.

They could do with evidence of unusual behavior.

“How did your mother express her stress?” he asks.

“Her face was pinched. She wasn’t happy when she drank. It wasn’t the same as when she was concerned about her co-workers, though. She was angry. She always cursed, but I could tell there was more behind it.”

The woman is barely containing the sorrow the memory drags up, but she’s made of stern stuff, voice flinty. 

There’s still Martinaise in her, Kim thinks.

“There wasn’t anything else going on in your lives? Maybe a fight with her boyfriend?”

There’s suddenly something in Harry’s voice, a lapse in his perfect delivery. Their interviewee doesn’t seem to notice, but Kim does, out of familiarity.

“No, they were doing great. They still talked on the phone every night, and school was going well for me.”

Harry likes to take pyrholidon before this type of interview, Kim remembers. Perhaps it helps with the onslaught of strangers’ emotions. There’s surely more grief in her than Kim can already see.

It’s time to relieve his partner.

“If you could provide us with a list of her friends, as far as you remember, and the name of her boyfriend at the time, it would be of great help to our investigation.”

He passes her his notebook, encouraging her as she plucks one name after another from the depths of her memory, assuring her the difficulty in recalling someone else’s social circle two decades ago is no fault of her own while carefully giving her time.

At one point she rises to go retrieve an address book, providing them with several phone numbers.

Next comes the inevitable denouement.

“Please, tell me what this is about.”

Whatever fatigue he felt before, to Kim’s gratitude Harry’s posture squares, now.

Kim hates these moments. He isn’t designed for intimate compassion.

Harry enters the breach, his sympathy palpable.

“We have a credible lead that your mother was the victim of a recently apprehended criminal the night before you reported her missing.”

The woman before them crumples, the forty-two year old disappearing into a bereaved young woman on the night of her greatest trauma.

“Oh, god,” she whispers, her voice small. “And the Claires…”

“It’s possible they were involved in the crime,” Harry says gently. He moves forward and she moves to the edge of her chair to meet him, and then she’s clutching his hands while he fortifies her with the soothing movement of one thumb.

“Was she… How did she… Please. I need to know.”

“It was a shooting.”

She’s crying, now, expression crumpled in fresh mourning even as she fights to speak.

“Thank you, I…”

Harry has the face of a saint, infinite in his compassion.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

She shakes her head, withdrawing her hands to press a knuckle to her pursed mouth, holding in a sob.

Seeing her pain reflected in Harry’s eyes, Kim picks up their closing lines.

“If you remember anything else, anything at all, don’t hesitate to call us.”

Madeline can only nod. They give her a moment to compose herself before the three of them rise and she escorts them to the door, murmuring another _Thank you._

She won’t hold her composure for long.

Kim gives Harry the ride down the elevator and their exit from the building for the man’s second hand emotions to subside.

He remembers Harry asking what more they could do to help Billie Méjean. Kim had distanced himself from Harry’s emotions at the time, cooly reminding the man of the reality that they could do nothing at all.

Harry has a firmer grasp on reality, today. He’s also doing police work through withdrawal because of his constant and largely successful effort to maintain sobriety.

More importantly, Kim isn’t intimidated by the emotion Harry could display. 

He’s more than comfortable with Harry. And anyway, he’s proud of him for walking tall despite the distress behind his eyes.

He looks to the side to catch his eyes, the warmth he associates with being near to the man swelling pleasantly.

“You did well in there. You were professional” — not quite what he was looking for, but then he finds it —“I could see how hard you were trying.”

Harry pulls a sorrow tinged, lopsided smile.

“I can do it, Kim. Be a detective, sober. I mean, don’t set your expectations sky high. I wanna drink so bad right now. But I can do the job.”

Kim allows himself to meet his smile, his own rueful but reassuring.

“I’m glad to hear that.”

Harry screws his face up.

“I just hope there’s nothing I missed because I wasn’t blitzed.”

Kim asserts his authority.

“Don’t think like that. We have plenty of information to go on. The first step is to find a witness that can testify to the tension between Holly and the Claires.”

Harry takes a deep breath and strengthens the confidence in his own voice.

“And then we place Edgar on that island.”

\----

Kim returns home to his apartment that evening with a sense of accomplishment.

Standing in the parking lot beside the Kineema, Harry operating the radio and Kim taking notes while looking nothing like themselves in Perseus Black, they made contact with Tiphaine Holly’s former boyfriend, Gerben Reijnders. He was, in fact, available to interview after lunch.

The others Madeline provided numbers for didn’t answer.

They drove to Couron and cruised slowly down a street of village shops, old buildings with new facades. They agreed on a cafe that didn’t look outrageously expensive. 

It wasn’t, but Kim still would have preferred not to spend so much on food.

The meeting with Gerben went smoothly. He was an affable old man, a retired pediatrician. The interview wasn’t so hard on Harry. Gerban had known Holly a little more than a year in seventy-one years of life. He remembered her, though. He had cared for her, and her disappearance was a trauma. 

He had been witness to her railing against Evrart Claire, his smarmy attitude, and his manipulative campaign tactics. Holly didn’t believe Evrart was interested in anyone but himself, Gerben said. She’d reiterated it enough in so many colorful terms that, positioned so close to his trauma, his memory of the matter was decisive. The union she had been a part of the violent struggle to build in her youth wasn’t going to fall into his hands if she could help it.

He thanked them, too, both for taking him back to his memories of his spitfire girlfriend and for giving him closure in her disappearance. _Get the bastards,_ he said.

He hadn’t known much about Edgar, but they didn’t need him to.

The rest of the afternoon was spent at the precinct tracking down more phone numbers and arranging interviews for tomorrow. With any luck, two days from now, they’ll be in Martinaise.

Now at home, Kim eats as frugally as possible to make up for his lunch.

He isn’t expecting the phone to ring, and certainly not the proposition laid down in a familiar Vespertine drawl in response to his _Hello_.

“Listen, I know I’m calling kinda soon. M’ sure you’ve got a lot on your plate. But I was kind of thinking maybe I could see you again. Maybe in less than a month?”

Kim can only imagine the number of times the man on the other end of the line ran those words through his head, knowing he had one chance to land them.

“Titus.”

Just his name, but the reluctance in his tone is a warning of what’s about to come

It’s a pity. Titus nailed the delivery.

“Go ahead. Hit me with the whole act. Get it out of your system,” he says.

It hurts, palpably, for Kim to realize what he has to say next. His body responds immediately to the man’s voice and the sex on offer, a surge of blood to his cock that his resolve focuses on willing away. He likes Titus’ company and appreciates the man made up his mind that a week was enough leeway to put something regular on the table despite whatever he thinks his own sexuality is. But whether Titus is calling from the Union offices or the Whirling, the line isn’t secure.

He can’t risk tipping off Evrart Claire, even knowing how the longshoreman will take his unannounced arrival in Martinaise.

He sinks into his couch, elbow resting on its arm, letting it take the weight he suddenly feels.

“Things have come up at work. I’m afraid I’ll have to postpone any kind of recreation,” he hears himself say, voice cool and detached.

He feels anything but. Frustrated. A little angry.

“‘Things’. Right. Let me know when you get those ‘things’ sorted out,” Titus teases.

There’s regret beneath Kim’s frustration. 

Titus’ has a sense of humor equally irritating and enjoyable. It doesn’t flag on account of Kim’s emotional removal. He can’t say that about many past partners.

“The RCM has to be my priority right now,” he says. 

He faces the familiar fact he has nothing else but his duty and he doesn't see that changing.

It’s not setting aside Titus, specifically, that’s momentarily demoralizing. It’s understanding that no one else will fill that role in his life, either.

But the man on the other end of the line can’t see Kim taking advantage of the privacy of his own apartment to physically indulge his fatigue, embraced by his couch. He can only hear the voice, level, and he’s not going to take that seriously.

“Sure. I gotcha,” Titus plays it off. “No time to let Titus Hardie grab your ass.”

Words come to Kim’s mind but not to his lips.

 _Have you considered_ I _could have designs on_ your _ass._

He smiles a weary smile despite the hopelessness of the whole thing. 

Just inflicting the image on Titus would be a pleasure.

 _People get to have fun,_ Harry said, and Kim is capable of it despite himself.

“Accept my regrets,” he says, instead.

“That sounds like admitting defeat, and I’m not good at that,” Titus rebuts, cheerful.

It occurs to Kim it’s unlikely he’s cheerful at all. 

How convenient for both of them their separation better enables their bluff.

“Good night, Titus.”

If he permits affection to slip into his voice, it’s because of the blow he’s going to deal in two days.

Titus scoffs, meeting him with sarcasm:

“Don’t work too hard.”

A click on the other end of the line and silence.

Kim returns his phone to its cradle without rousing himself from his brooding.

He knew before he ever slept with Titus the kind of sacrifices he needs to make for the job. One of them should have been avoiding Titus entirely. It’s too late for that. 

Not having exercised discretion, he has to say he’s getting what he deserves. The fantasy of a sex life with someone who tolerates his social disengagement along with his position in the RCM has always proven too much to ask for.

Still held by the sofa, he spins back to Marco four years ago and his own surprise and nerves when the dark haired man asked him to lunch among the shelves of a bookstore in Faubourg, months after their one night hookup. 

Kim had already transferred to the 57th, but hadn’t been willing to pay the fee to escape his long lease. After fifteen years he hadn’t expected a transfer.

He’s sure he has exaggerated Marco’s virtues in his memory in light of his own failure, but the man had been thoughtful and gentle. 

They spent the better part of a year in each other’s beds. Marco grappled poorly with Kim’s moods, and Kim grew used to his partner’s worry when he came to him bloodied from one skirmish or another. But they had an active sex life, and they always found something to talk about.

Kim’s lease finally came up. He started looking for apartments closer to the 57th. Marco asked him if he should come apartment hunting with him. He remembers the words coming out of his mouth: _I’m sure I can decide on my own._

He knew Marco hadn’t been asking if he needed help choosing an apartment. He’d been asking if Kim wanted to move in together. And Kim balked. He told himself he didn’t want to live with someone else at all — that it wasn’t his mode of operation.

One month later he regretted his decision. He had had no reason to shut Marco out, and now the man had moved on. _I’m forty-one. I’m tired of sleeping alone. I want more, Kim._

Kim regretted it, but still couldn’t be sure if he went after Marco he’d actually be able to promise him a future.

The only good that came out of the thing was coming out to Dom when the man asked about his poor mood and discovering his professional, platonic partner both understanding and supportive through his grief. It cemented their bond, and healthy or not until Dom’s death Kim came to find his emotional fulfillment from his close relationship with Dom and sex wherever else.

That one sided romantic affection provided safety by virtue of the fact it wouldn’t be reciprocated. No demands would be made. He could enjoy their shared dry sense of humor and the fact that Dom made him laugh without fear of emotional complications.

He also had to live knowing it would never be reciprocated.

Even if he mourns not overcoming his own instincts with Marco, Kim still can’t picture having a long term, live-in partner. But Titus has already seen him at his most neurotic and suffered him selfishly refusing to put on an act during their hookup. Titus doesn’t just know he’s an officer of the RCM, he’s been interrogated. They’ve traded threats and flashed sidearms. Titus doesn’t give a damn. 

Kim can’t imagine finding anyone more prepared to manage his own expectations. The words they traded over the phone only solidify that belief.

No doubt Titus thinks Kim’s equivocating and that a little coaxing will bring him around. It would be a theory that bears fruit, too, if it was an issue of wanting to be convinced.

\----

**Night**

LIMBIC SYSTEM: Wakey-wakey, little boy. But you can’t, can you? You‘re here. With us.

_How did I get here?_

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: Maybe you finally did it. Maybe you finally pulled the trigger. Maybe it’s the three of us, forever. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?

_No. I saw the look on Kim’s face. I’m wouldn't try that. Am I having a heart attack?_

LIMBIC SYSTEM: You’re not dying, Harry. You’re not that _lucky_. Try again.

_You were here to stop the dreams. I started dreaming again, and you bailed._

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: We didn’t leave you. You left us. For her. Three nights a week.

LIMBIC SYSTEM: Her and the world she’s from. You’ve been busy, Harry. With the engine noise of motor carriages and the electric lights and your godforsaken suffering and your lieutenant.

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: One more evil ape. And you know it, brother. You just can’t help yourself. Yearning. Palpitating. Starting to fantasize. Calling him at midnight to force him to deal with your sweating, decomposing bag of flesh. Terrifying him the same way you frighten her. How many times have you called her, drunk, since she thought she escaped you? Dialing and dialing.

_I called her before?_

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: So many times.

LIMBIC SYSTEM: Turning her back into a scared little girl hiding under the covers from the monster in the dark. She changed her number again and again, _frantic_ to escape. She yelled and she pleaded. You animal.

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: She’s waiting for the final call she _can’t_ escape, the one where you carry through while you make her listen. You’ve come so close she’s hung up shaking.

_God, I’m sorry. I should tell her I’m sorry._

LIMBIC SYSTEM: You think you haven’t done that, too? Who _haven’t_ you told you’re sorry? The one same word over, and over, and over again. You won’t leave them alone. You’ll haunt them until the final curtain falls on their tortured lives. An ineludible spectre prickling the hairs on the back of their necks.

_That’s not what I want. That’s not who I want to be. I can do better than that._

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: You’re the detective. You squared your shoulders and pulled your coat back on. Do you have a single piece of evidence to support that? 

_I know what’s going on. You’re trying to distract me from why I’m here._

LIMBIC SYSTEM: And you won’t let us help you. We’re only ever trying to help you.

_You told me to lay down and die. You both tried to kill me._

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: Sister said what she said. This is your last chance. One way or another, this will be the last time we meet. You can wake up and put your gun toward its greatest purpose, or you can go _there_ with _him_. But I already know what you’ll do. You didn’t come here to listen, you came here to try and see it.

_See what?_

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: The thing rising from the depths.

_...from the Abyssopelagic Zone?_

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: Deeper. 

_I don’t see anything. Everything’s black._

LIMBIC SYSTEM: Blacker than the catacombs beneath Coal City. Blacker than the restless ocean at night. Blacker than the space between the stars.

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: It’s the antagonist, rising like the kraken, so slowly you’ll never guess the danger. But go on, Harrier. Stay by his side. Fight the good fight. He _inspires_ you. 

LIMBIC SYSTEM: _She_ inspired you. Hope like the may bell unfolding its blossoms, wet from the spring rain, plucked by her hand and pinned to your lapel.

ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: We tried, Harry. Don’t forget how we tried.

LIMBIC SYSTEM: The world is calling you. Do you hear it, Harry? The evil apes in the apartment next door, down on the street outside your window...

Don’t keep them waiting.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disco Trivia
> 
> _Encyclopedia: The Ubi are known for their partiality to socialism and sheep. They come from an island called Ubi Sunt?, drifting in the pale off the coast of Vesper. It's the only place in the world that has a question mark in it's name._

**Thursday, 22 April ‘51**

The last interview of the day has wrapped up. They’ve firmly established more of the same: Tiphaine Holly loved her daughter too much not to take advantage of the money her new position afforded her but still felt loyalty to the Union and tenaciously fought the Claires’ ascent.

Harry doesn’t ask Kim where they’re going when they head in the wrong direction leaving their last interview of the day. For all the glass in the Kineema’s cabin, he can’t see around the driver’s seat, just out the windows beside him, and through the roof to the twilight-touched blue sky above.

Stella Maris passes by around them, beautiful houses in stucco — creams and coral pinks and powder blues. Harry spots extravagant châteaux in glimpses between the houses, on estates distant from the public roads.

SHIVERS: The shells fall one after another, explosion after explosion thundering from distant artillery. They fall. Pavement erupts from the streets. Antecentennial houses burst into sprays of debris, clouds of dust billowing up from the wreckage. Men, women and children lie dead inside, their last moments spent cowering together, anticipating the fatal shell.

Members of the Insulindian Citizens Militia crouch against the walls of these houses and position themselves in their windows, waiting. Some dying. The deserters have already fled, or curl in corners pissing themselves in fear. So many of these volunteers are young, too young, but terror touches every age. The shells fall relentlessly, but the vacholieres hold their Belle-Magraves at ready, moment bleeding into moment.

No more shells, only silence and the rattle of crumbling debris. Now, the sound of bootfalls on broken pavement. The Coalition charge sweeping forward from the beachhead. Next, the rifle fire. The crack of exploding gunpowder, gunshot residue on Coalition and ICM hands. The screams of the wounded and dying — ICM, civilian and Coalition — rise from the devastated landscape. In the end, the invaders overwhelm the vacholieres. They line them up against shattered walls. Their captains order _Fire_.

I EMBRACED THEIR FALLEN BODIES WITH MY SOIL.

SAVOIR FAIRE: The money streamed in behind them, buying patriotism out from under the survivors. Hustle and grind, baby.

Tomorrow, Harry will be in Martinaise, where no money followed the landing — no money for the people, only for their exploiters. Where the depressions left by falling shells still pock the ground and bullet holes scatter the walls.

He’s tired, it feels like he didn’t sleep at all. The day’s interviews still cling to him, an invisible film of impressions and emotions.

The Kineema rolls to a stop and Kim gets out, prompting: "Detective."

Harry climbs out from the back seat behind him. 

PERCEPTION (Sight): The beach stretches before you beyond hillocks of grass — smooth sand interrupted by rocks. This beach is clean of tare and the rusting remains of wrecked motor carriages. No sluggish oil runoff poisons its landscape. The water is growing warmer now in late April. No one is swimming, but a handful of citizens are out on the sand, enjoying the afternoon.

PERCEPTION (Smell): You’ve never smelled air this clean. A perpetual stench hangs over Jamrock, the furthest extent of Land’s End can’t escape it. A soup of pollution and rotting trash, bodily discharge and car exhaust.

The stunning scenery alone invigorates Harry. He’s only seen natural, open landscapes like this as glimpses in visions. The stimulation gives him a second wind.

Despite the natural beauty sprawling before them, a reluctance hangs over Kim, and something apologetic.

"I’d prefer to tell you I only wanted to see the bay, but before we leave for Martinaise, we need to talk. It can’t be at the precinct."

"Doesn’t mean we can’t see the bay," Harry says. "I’ve never seen a beach like this. Or _anything_ like this."

Their Perseus Blacks aren’t beach friendly clothing, but they aren’t going anywhere else except back to the 41st today.

He’s already pulling off his polished black shoes and his socks, which he stuffs inside them. He leaves them beside the Kineema. In Stella Maris, they won’t even get stolen.

Kim hesitates, but follows his example, casting repeated glances toward the coast ahead of them.

LOGIC: He chose this place because the sound of the waves means greater privacy.

EMPATHY: He wants to walk on the beach, too.

Feet leaving tracks in the cool sand, for the first few minutes they don’t say anything at all. 

Nothing could be worth interrupting the scenery. The clean air shocks the senses. 

It’s been two weeks since his relapse, and still a fight every day not to plunge back into vice — alcohol, speed, and pyrholidon cravings battling to be the craving of the minute — but the pleasant weather and wide open space puts a smile on his face.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Bracing sea air, bare feet and the firm sand. The perfect place to go for a jog.

INLAND EMPIRE: Jamrock is someone else’s bad dream, far, far away from here.

The only thing that mars this perfect landscape is the near total inaccessibility to the average citizen of Revachol West to anything like it. It’s a beach for market-embraced, gainfully employed bourgeois, while the surplus laborers capital has no use for are warehoused, suffering, in Jamrock, Faubourg and Coal City until such a time time a change in the market might call for their employment.

Harry watches two children running giggling and shrieking in the surf as they splash water at each other. There’s a gaggle of teens sitting on some of the bigger rocks chatting and passing a glass pipe.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: That’s a bowl. You pack it with weed and get funky. You should get one, score some ganja and blaze it! Better yet, go ask them if you can take a hit _right now_.

"Khm," Kim interrupts beside him.

Harry realizes he’s stopped stock still, and was staring.

"My brain says I used to smoke weed."

"I’m not surprised. We all used to smoke marijuana in the 20s and 30s, detective. It was a defining feature of our culture," Kim says placidly. "You can’t. The cardiovascular risk is too high."

A fresh surge of despair crashes through the typical misery of withdrawal.

"Seriously? The ganja, too?"

"I’m sorry, but yes."

In that moment, Kim sounds softer.

Harry takes a last reluctant look at the teenagers laughing and smoking on the rocks and then shakes it off, now-rueful smile picking back up.

"There’s not anything I can use, is there?"

"As a former juvenile officer who used to supposedly educate classrooms of children on the dangers of drugs but realistically was teaching them the variety of drugs they could try, I can say with some authority: No."

DRAMA: He’s not overselling it.

RHETORIC: He must really be worried about your health to bring up his career in juvie.

ENDURANCE: If one organ won’t fail, another will. It could be your heart, or your liver, or your kidneys. Just the smoking you’re doing could cause a cardiac event, or lead to esophageal, lung or bladder cancer.

All these thoughts of smoking are too much. Harry digs his Astras out of his trouser pockets and lights up, breathing in chemical relief for his growing craving.

At least Kim spares him from hammering home how he needs to quit this, too. 

They walk another minute while Harry smokes, the sky beginning to change color as the sun sinks toward its appointed meeting with the horizon. 

Harry ashes his cigarette over the sand.

"So, what’s wrong?"

His friend and present partner firms the line of his lips, steeling himself for whatever unpleasant confession. Harry’s looking at him but he isn’t looking at Harry, eyes skittering over the beach ahead.

"I’m not proud to admit it, it was a lapse in judgement," he begins. He pauses, but presses on. "After the mercenary tribunal, while you were still unconscious..."

The lieutenant exhales frustration.

COMPOSURE: His incredulity he has to tell you whatever’s coming next has him preoccupied.

EMPATHY: He’s not embarrassed, he’s irritated. Not with you, with himself.

"Kim, I know you. It can’t be that bad," Harry says.

After a silence, the man beside him reassumes his veneer of quiet control.

"It was unprofessional. I had sex with Titus Hardie."

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Whoa, whoa, whoa. He did what? Isn’t that guy like two hundred centimeters tall? He weighs at least a hundred ten. Pure beef. And he’s bi-sexual? We need to think about this. Maybe take twenty, thirty minutes on this one.

VOLITION: Don’t listen to him.

REACTION SPEED: Stay focused.

The corner of Harry’s mouth tucks itself further into his mutton chops.

"Don’t know if I thought he was your type. I don’t know who I did think is your type."

"That isn’t the point."

VISUAL CALCULUS: You received a correct assessment of Titus Hardie’s dimensions. Kim is approximately one hundred and eighty centimeters tall but unusually slight for a man of his height. Assuming the participants engaged in anal intercourse there are several positions that would be more viable than others, depending on if Kim was the penetrating or penetrated partner—

VOLITION: Please do **not** look at his dick right now.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Don’t listen to this boner killer. You were passed out and they were fucking in the next room! You deserve to know how they got off. You were practically right there!

SUGGESTION: And you wouldn’t turn either of them down. But who _would_ you turn down?

PERCEPTION (Sight): The lieutenant is watching you.

COMPOSURE: It’s too late to pretend you’re not thinking this through.

RHETORIC: Don’t make it awkward. Play it off.

Harry’s grin couldn’t be wider. He drops a wink. He spreads his hands as he speaks, gesticulating with his burning cigarette.

"I mean, good for you! He’s hot, you’re hot. There’s no problem with two hot people getting together to—"

"There is a problem, officer. We chose not to be private about it. Worse, I’ve been to see him since. I don’t know if it will make him more forthcoming or more reticent. It may impact my reputation in the community in other ways. That’s why you need to know."

Kim’s manner, although abrupt, shows no indication of shame. 

AUTHORITY: Because not making sexuality a part of his public persona doesn’t come from shame. It’s a choice made to reduce complications.

DRAMA: He’s a consummate actor. What other roles can he play?

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Let’s focus on the important stuff here. Remember when Titus grabbed his cock through his sweats? Right in your face! The dude is hung. How does that even fit in Kim?

AUTHORITY: The lieutenant is likely to be the dominant partner in any relationship.

PAIN THRESHOLD: No. Kim came to work fucked.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: There’s no contradiction, here. Anybody can feel like getting fucked.

_How am I so sure?_

LOGIC: It’s possible it’s because you’ve now read four books on sex studies and gender theory, but it’s more likely because you’re a bi-sexual who may have experimented with multiple modes of sexual experience.

Harry hisses through his teeth and shakes his hand at a sudden searing pain as his cigarette burns down to his fingers, flinging the butt to the sand. 

Kim scoffs beside him.

COMPOSURE: He’s trying not to laugh, and not doing much to disguise it.

Harry fiddles for another cigarette and clears his throat.

"I’m pretty sure you told me because you thought I’d figure it out in the middle of the conversation and embarrass you in public."

"That, too. Also so you wouldn’t do _this_ in front of anyone else."

Despite his previous, obvious pleasure at the universe’s physical rebuke, his voice remains cool and steady.

A longing takes up in Harry. Kim still looks fantastic in his tailored black uniform. It’s impossible not to cast a glance over him, fleeting but an eyeful enough to remind him what nobody’s going to offer him.

"It’s not my fault, Kim. I haven’t had sex in my entire conscious existence on the material plane," he says reluctantly.

INLAND EMPIRE: A body bereft of touch since it emerged from the dark and endless void.

"Yes, and that’s why I’m neither shocked nor offended you’re speculating," Kim says. His voice isn’t gentle, but it’s honest.

EMPATHY: Yet somehow you know he’s not completely unperturbed. You can’t gain the traction to build a case.

Harry makes a face, dragging on his fresh cigarette, then shaking his head.

"You could be more excited that you got laid. I’d be out of my mind."

The words roll off Kim without sticking.

"I told you, it was unprofessional. Please refrain from bringing it up unless you believe it will aid the investigation."

There’s nothing to say to that. They pause where they are, gazing across the expanse of water before them. Boats with white sails, small speedboats Harry can barely pick out, and big ferries. For the average resident of Revachol East, it isn’t unusual to own a small craft to travel freely to La Delta and back, and the ferries carry the rest. 

He’s reminded of Titus’ rowing club jacket and Lilienne’s outboard motor. They’ll never see the docks at La Delta. They’d have a hard time making it if they tried to, and they wouldn’t be welcome if they reached it. 

He won’t see La Delta, either, except as shimmering golden ghosts striving toward the sky in the distance, today off the 8/81 traveling between Revachol West and East, on postcards and in visions.

They turn back toward the parking lot and the Kineema that will carry them back to a less hospitable environment.

Harry doesn’t expect to see Revachol East again. Not for a while, or maybe not ever. He can’t afford anything here, including the view, which costs bus fare or a motor carriage. Just eating lunch yesterday set him back.

He’s trying to soak up the scenery but his brain’s still processing Kim’s news. How did they even strike it off? Does Kim cut loose with big jocks all the time or is this an exception? What would Kim cutting loose even look like? How great would it be to have a big, muscley guy to hold you? (Not as great as having Kim.) How _does_ Kim fit it in there? Did they really do it _six meters away from him?_

He’s glad Kim isn’t embarrassed about sex, because his brain can’t stop.

He’s glad Kim gave him the evening to chew through it, too.

Maybe it’d be different if he could have sex. If anybody wanted to have sex with him. If he even knew where to look for sex besides bars with very, very drunk people — because who would want _him_ to sit down across from them in a coffee shop?

He’s not Kim. He’s not slim and reasonably fit and well dressed and not in any stage of organ failure. 

It’s no big shock two healthy forty’ish somethings are attracted to each other. Harry, on the other hand, Kim said he looks fifty-six.

\----

**Friday, 23 April ‘51**

Evrart Claire’s oversized chair embraces him as he sits behind his hardwood two tier desk, the nerve center of the Débardeurs' Union.

Every day he’s greeted by the same arrangement. His singing swordfish clock, the potted plants that liven the air of his office, the bright hand-knotted rug from Bashir on the steel cargo crate floor, his loud yellow desk lamp, the whiskey decanter for his guests, his typewriter and rolodex and the picture of his brother.

This is, in some senses, his home. And how could it be any other way? He’s barely ambulatory without his walker, like a toddering old man at only fifty-three. His joints complain under his weight. 

He used to be a real rascal, getting up to delinquency with Edgar and fighting at school. Then he was a longshoreman, throughout his twenties, fat, but not as fat as this. As the years passed, his metabolism just couldn’t hack it. 

Now, he has his fishing, and the luxuries of the house that he shares with Edgar when one or the other of them aren’t away. It’s not the life they imagined when they cooked up their plans to take charge of the Union, but a childhood of extreme poverty has lasting impacts. 

He has to satisfy himself with swindling and disarming the wine sipping aristocrats of international capital. 

He’s been informed by radio that he has guests. Familiar faces, if unwelcome ones. Two RCM officers making their way through his container yard right now.

He can’t fuck with them this time. They’re starting out with the advantage. He only loosely knows their business. Also, to his knowledge neither of them has just been on a three day bender losing all memory of his life and making a suicidal fool of himself in front of the whole of Martinaise in the process, a situation which had allowed him to single Du Bois out and turn the screws on him.

The man is wearing his idiotic smile as he enters the office ahead of his composed and reserved partner. He’s dressed the same as when he and Evrart first met in his thirties’ blazer and lime green crocodile skin shoes, but his dress shirt is crisp and clean and his pants don’t have suspiciously disgusting stains. The tie hanging loose around his neck is the biggest change, an average red and white paisley with black accents. 

Evrart doesn’t dislike Harry, per se. He provided genuine entertainment and served the purpose of shaking up Joyce Messier. He dislikes the clarity of his eyes and the healthy color of his skin. For strategic purposes, he’d prefer him falling over himself drunk.

"Evrart! How’s the diabetes treating you?"

The friendly greeting is completely authentic.

"How thoughtful of you to ask," Evrart says with a wide, welcoming smile. "I have a wonderful new device I wear that monitors my blood glucose throughout the day. I’ve never had an easier time dosing my insulin!"

"I assume you know why we’re here," his partner says with his standard imperturbability.

 _No, no, no, Mr. Kitsuragi,_ he thinks. 

This is still happening on his terms.

He adopts a tone of lament.

"I’m disappointed it has to be on business. You discovered a whole new species of phasmid just outside my own hometown! Enormous, too. I read all about it in the papers. I saw the photograph. Tremendous stuff."

Harry lights up brighter at the mention of the phasmid. He’s like a child, dazzled by the enormity of the world.

"It was amazing. The greatest moment of my life, probably out of everything I can’t remember."

Evrart purses his lips in a compassionate expression of concern.

"It’s a pity the retrograde amnesia hasn’t cleared up, Mr. Du Bois. That must be a real trial," he says.

He’s masking it well, but Kitsuragi is growing impatient, closer to where Evrart wants him.

"It’s not as bad as you’d think. I can’t miss what I don’t know about!" Harry says, candid. "The only toughest thing is being thrown into the middle of this drama where everybody else knows their parts, and I forgot mine."

"Yes. It makes me appreciate how lucky we are to have life narratives," Kitsuragi interrupts dryly. "We’re hoping you can share part of yours: the events of ‘31 surrounding the local chapter elections."

It’s about the accusation made by the revolutionary holdout, then. Unfortunately Harry’s more cogent coterie hushed him from expanding on what that accusation was during his dressing down on the streets of Illisible where one of Ingolf’s men was positioned to record them.

Evrart puts on his friendliest smile. Words will have to see him through. As many of them as he can conjure, and as few of those on topic as possible. It’s the only way to throw off Kitsuragi’s diligent scribbling in his little blue notebook.

"Whatever salacious accounts you may have been exposed to, there’s not much to tell. Would you like me to excavate a ballot? As far as my brother and I were concerned, Edgar and I had established ourselves with the Union, but ‘31 was the first year we took an interest in union politics. 

"Our family had only been able to afford to send one of us to university in Le Jardin. We all worked to save up for it. Even our Aunt Doris! Well, we chose Edgar. He earned a scholarship after his first year and got to see things through! Since Edgar had been away, I had seniority within the organization. We put my name on the ballot."

Harry zeroes in with clear focus. 

That isn’t good. It’s quite unwelcome.

"What kind of campaign did the two of you run?" he asks.

Evrart makes a sweeping gesture and thinks to sprinkle in a little of that jargon Harry’s type likes so much.

"Oh, flyers, posters, buying drinks for the boys, greasing a few wheels. But really? It all hinged on Edgar. If you met him you’d know right away he has the right stuff for this position. He has the _vision_. That’s what we ran on, his vision to return dignity to the working class that the bourgeoisie education we won him helped him weaponise against the Top Hats. 

"I love this town but I’m a simple man, I had only just begun to imagine the possibilities. I haven’t dove in the deep end of theory like you and Edgar, Mr. Du Bois. The important thing was people _liked_ me and they _trusted_ me and I’d never given them a reason to doubt I’ll fight for their rights."

It helps his case that it’s all true. He’s secure in his ability to keep the harbor running, hatch and execute the occasional scheme, and seize opportunities as they appear. The long term plans are Edgar’s purview. 

It’s unfortunate Edgar is overseas, primarily because it will be possible for the Moralintern to place him under arrest outside the protection of Martinaise — a thought that makes Evrart’s blood run cold — but also because he’d deal with the police with the greatest facility.

"What’d your relationship been like with the Union’s forewoman before you two got interested in politics?"

Harry sounds as affable as he ever has, but despite the man’s deep and by all accounts genuine communist inclinations and his sympathy to the Union’s economic strategy, Evrart doesn’t mistake him for an ally. 

"Ms. Holly was a wonderful woman. Sharp dresser. Great communicator. We were on speaking terms," he says. "The more abstract issue, a dispute purely reserved for the political arena, was that she didn’t live here in Martinaise. At the end of the workday, off she went to her apartment across the delta in Betancourt. She didn’t have her finger on the pulse of the people.

"Working men and women were ready for change to come to this banlieue and, damn it, it’s been hard going but we’ve brought it to them! Overtime, healthcare, and now we’ve taken the whole damn harbor. You and I both know that’s why the Moralintern has you back in Martinaise raking muck. Because we’ve got them on the ropes. If I may be candid, and after all, we’re all pals: This work is beneath you."

His hackles rise as he speaks. He’s hedging as close to the truth as he can and the truth is he and Edgar have battled for their right to their excesses. 

They couldn’t just skim off the top at the expense of, at present, two thousand three hundred and seventy men and women, all of them fit for a good riot and many of them armed. No, they had to make sure Wild Pines paid for those people’s well-being while he and Edgar enjoyed the largess of their position.

He saw Kitsuragi’s eyes narrow at one word: banlieue. He slides him an unctuous smile.

In common parlance, Revachol is a city, Jamrock, like Faubourg or Betancourt, are banlieues within it, and Martinaise is a district of Jamrock. 

Not now, though. Not anymore. Martinaise has seized its independence, it's only a matter of time until the profundity of the change sinks in for their neighbors. 

Most saliently, it means the RCM’s jurisdiction here has been finally, popularly nullified.

"There’s no question you and your brother’s tactics have seen success," Kitsuragi says, unmoved. "If you could walk us through the day of the local chapter election?"

The time has come for lies. The key to the game is to stick to the same lies he told before.

"I’m afraid there’s nothing to walk you through. Ms. Holly’s daughter called and said Holly conceded the race and the election was handed to me."

"Do you remember how you heard about the phone call?" Harry asks.

Evrart laughs.

"Harry, Harry, don’t forget I was _ambulatory_ in those days, and I hadn’t given up the bottle! I was just elected foreman. I was celebrating with the boys. The only thing I can say for sure is I was drunk!"

It’s true that was exactly what he was doing.

"So, no other details?" Harry dogs.

Evrart shakes his head sympathetically.

"No specifics."

Kitsuragi taps his pen against his notebook.

"Then, nothing about casseroles, or irons, or hair dryers?" he asks with a small, wry smile.

He thinks he’s undermining his testimony, but he’s actually being terribly helpful reminding Evrart exactly what he said Holly might have left on at home.

Kitsuragi is usefully proud. The foreman appreciates that. He wags a finger at the officer with a knowing smile.

"You’re adroit with your little notebook, Mr. Kitsuragi, but no. I had been speaking in metaphor. Whatever caused her to return home was none of my business. The only thing I know is she put her personal business above the future of the Union, and then it was my turn on the big stage."

Kitsuragi flips back a couple of pages and references his notes.

"In your previous statement you said Ms. Holly returned to Martinaise later that day after you’d been awarded the position of foreman. However, we’ve found no evidence she ever returned to Martinaise."

It cuts him to the core to be accused of misleading these self-appointed authorities!

That’s what his distressed face and wounded tone of voice and the sweeping gestures of his hands are saying. 

"Statement! Mr. Kitsuragi, I was just making conversation. Next you’ll be telling me I’ve _perjured_ myself. The courts are in Couron, they’re in La Delta. We’re in Martinaise." A subtler, special emphasis on the word: _Martinaise_. "I could have sworn, but… Maybe you can find somebody who was sober? Get a _statement_ from them, take down their _testimony_."

A rueful shake of his head. To so callously be betrayed by his friends! 

He adopts a patient and forgiving countenance.

Harry lifts his chin, squinting at him over his pronounced, no longer ruddy nose. 

"Didn’t you think it was _weird_ for her not to finish out the election?"

Evrart sighs, greatly burdened by the contingencies of local politics.

Inwardly, he knows they’ve been speaking to people. The account of Tiphaine Holly he provided them with won’t align in any way with the accounts of her friends, acquaintances or daughter. 

At the time, it had seemed so unimportant and long ago.

Only explaining that away matters, now.

" _Weird_ , Mr. Du Bois? She left Martinaise to join the middle class. You’re a man of the people. What more do you expect from someone like that?"

Harry nods along, but Evrart can already see he’s not biting. He’s damnably mentally collected, today.

"I had the same thing on my mind when we opened the case. But we got to talking to people, and it sounds like she was scared for her daughter. I get how it’s tough to stick to your principles when you come under that kind of pressure," Harry says.

"The RCM let the gangs run _us_ out of Martinaise a few years later," he goes on. "We’re supposed to be the people’s militia. She was just one woman."

He has the _audacity_ to take Evrart’s chair, turn it around, prop one foot up on it and rest his elbow on his knee as his argument closes in on its point, eyes fixed on Evrart’s:

"The thing is, everybody we’ve talked to says she was still passionate about the Union. She’d been out there staring down Wild Pines’ guns to help found it. And she sounds pretty stubborn, not the kind of woman to cut and run."

Evrart turns his palms up, empty. 

"As I said, we were on speaking terms. We weren’t _friends_. I wasn’t privy to her _personal life_. I looked at her and I saw a class traitor. Maybe my politics prejudiced me. I was young and on fire with zeal for my convictions."

He punches the air. Pow! Pow!

"You didn’t think it was strange at all?" Kitsuragi pursues.

There’s nothing to do but smile.

"Not one bit."

Harry takes it back up.

"She’d been campaigning all the time, hadn’t she? Sounded like she stayed late every day. She started cancelling plans with her friends on her days off to be here."

This is the end of the line.

Evrart exhales heavy regret.

"You’re trying to make me contradict myself. You expect me to _stutter_ and _backtrack_ , but I can only tell you my own perspective! I’ve already done that. There’s nothing more to say."

He isn’t going to repeat himself, and he isn’t making up new details when he still hasn’t worked out exactly how much they know.

He isn’t worried about himself, but for Edgar. Edgar, who he has to bring home.

"It would help if we could speak with your brother. We’d like to hear about his perspective."

—bring home immediately. 

It’s the worst case scenario. They’ve linked his brother to Iosef Dros. 

He suddenly wishes he had Elizabeth beside him. He paid for that legal education for exactly this kind of situation. She’s elsewhere, buried in mundane contractual paperwork.

"What I wouldn’t give for time to speak to Edgar," he says with a wistful smile. "He’s abroad, in Sur-la-Clef right now, negotiating new contracts with our clients. I can see about arranging a tête-à-tête over the phone but between the time zone differences and the demands of political necessity it won’t be right away."

He will be placing that phone call as soon as the time is amenable. He’ll even discuss the possibility of Edgar speaking to their friendly Martinaise-adjacent RCM officers, because there’s no way to make an inter-isola call not monitored by the International Coalition Police, just like you can’t place a call in Martinaise without the Union listening. But he and his brother have their little phrases, their innocuous code words. 

Edgar will find a way home. He’s the cleverest person Evrart knows.

"You do know how important it is we talk to him," Harry baits.

Evrart’s smile couldn’t be more pleasant.

"Mr. Du Bois, the only thing I know is your visit has something to do with the lunatic you picked up off that island allegedly shooting Forewoman Holly. I may seem omnipotent but I’m not _actually_ psychic. I’m afraid occult visions are entirely your purview."

"Your brother has been accused of ordering the assassination of Tiphaine Holly," Kitsuragi says with complete detachment from the gravity of his pronouncement.

"Edgar…?" A storm comes over the foreman’s broad face. "Don’t _fuck around_ , Mr. Kitsuragi. That’s completely ridiculous! I’m not even entertaining questions about something that fantastic."

Harry plays the good cop, still posing on Evrart’s chair.

"You understand we have to ask around Martinaise, though? It’s our job."

As much as he’d prefer them not to — Holly’s death may be ancient history, but what is Martinaise but the stagnating remnants of history? — appeasing them is paramount.

He picks up the persona of friendly old Mr. Claire.

"You’re at liberty to ask around Martinaise as much as you need to — as long as you understand you’re outside your jurisdiction. We’re no longer paying lip service to the misconception that Martinaise is a district of Jamrock, and I won’t have you threatening my citizens with arrest. If you stumble across any malfeasance, report it to the _authorities_ ," he warns in a sociable way. 

"But Edgar and I have nothing to hide," he goes on affably. "Let’s get right to the bottom of Ms. Holly’s disappearance!" 

He slams his fist into his palm with a decisive smack. 

He’s pleased to see them neither concede nor argue for their right to enforce Moralintern law. They don’t want to push their luck any more than he does his. It’s a standoff, three boiadeiros with their hands hovering over their metaphorical muskets.

"I’d tell Titus not to give you any trouble, but since you’re all close personal friends, I’m sure he’ll mind himself," he concludes pleasantly.

He serenely diverts his gaze from Harry to his partner.

Kitsuragi doesn’t flinch, only says:

"Thank you for your time, Mr. Claire. We’ll be going."

Evrart can’t help the smile playing over his lips. It’s just enough insinuation for Kitsuragi’s brow to crease, but not enough that the man places the source of his amusement.

The fact is he had Kitsuragi’s hostel room bugged to Mundi and back, but it wouldn’t do to go antagonizing him about it when he wants them all to be on the best of terms until Edgar can extricate himself from business matters that suddenly seem terribly less important and doubtlessly able to be handled by one of their many competent subordinate personnel. 

Besides, he doesn’t think he’d throw Kitsuragi off for more than a minute. 

In the officers’ absence, he considers whether they could be serious agents for the Moralintern and the potential danger of them being sent to aid in the sabotage dogging the harbor. 

It’s getting worse, deflated tires and unfastened mooring lines. There have been accidents, now. He’s ordered more arrests, too, and issued coinciding threats and bribes to keep the 57th off their backs over those arrests, but the escalation hasn’t played out in the Union’s favor. 

Even though they can’t allow malfeasants in sensitive positions to operate freely, they’re emboldening the remaining moles to gamble for higher stakes.

Nonetheless, Mr. Du Bois and Mr. Kitsuragi seem extremely unlikely to be seditious men of mystery. There’s not much mysterious about them. One’s a moribund alcoholic clinging to the shredded remains of his past after catastrophic brain damage. The other is a principled and diligent RCM officer with an active sex life who forewent any attempts to compromise Evrart’s appointed sheriff in the two chances he’s had.

Evrart possesses thorough evidence the first opportunity was harmless, and Ingolf seems satisfied the second was equally so.

That all this will make Titus more conscientious of who he’s sleeping with is a long shot, a distant fruitless fantasy, but Evrart isn’t going to meddle, now, when the business with that Klaasje woman liberated them from Wild Pines.

Maybe something advantageous will present itself.

\----

Stepping back out into the container yard is stepping into a universe proud with red and white. Although doubtlessly Wild Pines marked cargo containers still lie among the millions in the harbor, those containers ready for immediate use flaunt their Union colors, colors that will slowly bleed into ports on every isola.

Harry has been putting thoughts into Kim’s head, because he catches himself idly wondering if the sight of them will inspire other harbor workers to strike for their rights abroad.

He knows the harbor well but can’t imagine working day in and out on this treacherous terrain. Over the past five years, he’s seen what this place can do to men. Falls from heights, bodies crushed by machinery, chemical spills, synthetic cable accidents like Titus’, and, worst, explosions — one so big the duraluminum structure of the 57th shuddered around him, office supplies jittering across desks.

He’s dealt with the aftermath of these things, not infrequently recruited to help cordon off scenes of accident and death outside of his duties as a homicide detective if he’s been the nearest officer available even in the obvious absence of foul play, but that after the danger has asserted itself and passed.

There’s no room for error at any time in the workday. Kim considers chewing tobacco a relatively foul habit but less so among longshoremen, where the constant infusion of nicotine keeps attention sharp.

The men and women who do this work deserve unions, healthcare, compensation, and a degree of self determination. The harbor can be a terrible place that spends up human lives to continuously feed the insatiable machine of interisolary commerce.

And still, knowing all the horror of this place, he feels awe staring up at the parked Kvalsund crane. It’s an engineering marvel, hoisting impossibly heavy containers with ease and steaming down the unbelievably large steel tracks that run throughout the harbor. Huge wheels like the one below them, in front of the gate, open draw bridges to let this crane and others like it power past. 

As a mechanic, he’d love to be the one scaling that ladder protected only by thin bands of metal to contend with its parts lubricated with viscous black grease. He couldn’t explain it if he was asked, how machinery like this exercises such a hold over him. The Kineema is the same, so much power in a single sleek package. 

Maybe it’s the thrill of recognizing the thin line between life and death when operating high powered machines. 

He’s not one of those fans abstractly guilty of being mesmerized by the brutality of Tip Top. A younger Kim Kitsuragi witnessed people whose hands he shook just before the race die in illegal speeding competitions. He’s careened around a corner to lose traction and explode against an unforgiving brick wall. He’s never actually lost his taste for foolish thrills, only learned to defer it.

"You ever think about switching careers?" Harry asks as Kim’s eyes keep returning to the crane while they navigate the container yard.

"Becoming a longshoreman is a long and complicated process for younger men," Kim says, which is to say he’s considered the allure. And the raise.

He adjusts his glasses.

"I’m happy to be able to work as a mechanic within my capacity as a civil servant."

Which is to say he has somehow ended up with an unbelievable car. 

"We’re squaring things away with Titus next, right?" Harry asks without any inappropriate insinuations.

"We’d antagonize him, otherwise," Kim agrees.

If there is a God, Kim is grateful to them that Harry came to work not visibly thinking about what Kim does with himself in bed.

While he made an extremely ill calculated decision in his choice of partner and his poor decision making was shameful, he’s completely comfortable with the fact he had more than satisfying sex with that partner.

The difficulty once again lay in _Harry_ speculating about his naked body. All the worse that the man so often has the maturity of a fourteen year old. 

He decided before ever informing him that he wouldn’t be vexed with his inevitable reaction. Harry is smart, curious, physical and for all intents and purposes a virgin. 

Last night had been difficult, with the memory of Harry’s eyes on his body fresh on his mind and Harry’s assessment ringing in his ears. _He’s hot, you’re hot. There’s no problem with two hot people getting together._

He hadn’t been sure of what’s now obvious: Harry considers him attractive, whether on account of the fact Harry is sex-starved or otherwise. It’s information he wishes he didn’t have. It complicates things in a way he doesn’t like. It guarantees Harry would return his affections, physically.

To be able to leave for Martinaise unharassed was, however, a relief.

It’s obvious from the lingering memory of Evrart’s smug, knowing smile that Kim can’t expect to escape the day unharassed, but only Harry has the power to chip beneath the surface to expose real vulnerability with any ease.

They let themselves into the Union office with its green leather furniture and irregular carpets, greeted by radio chatter and the sight of little ‘Easy’ Leo sitting in the armchair with a plate of what unappetizingly appears to be black pudding and mash.

"Mister Harry! Mister Kitsuragi! I didn’t expect to see you back in Martinaise in your RCM uniforms. Not so soon, I didn’t," he says, face aglow.

Kim greets him with a small but earnest smile. He’s never been immune to the little man’s boundless enthusiasm, a rare trait in Revachol West. Leo has told them enough for Kim to know it’s not a matter of the immigrant from Ubi Sunt? having had an easy life.

He isn’t surprised the gossip knows his name.

"How’ve you been, Leo?" Harry asks.

They don’t need to confer for Kim to know they both see an opportunity for information — too much of it, perhaps, but some potentially useful.

Leo sets his meal aside on the broad arm of the chair, leaning forward to blink up at them with merry eyes.

"Me and the missus have been doing fine. She came down with the flu end of March, but a few weeks and she was good as gold! The strike’s over, but you know that. It’s back to work for everybody. The harbor’s full of life. I’m glad, too. I’d got to missing seeing all the boys."

It’s a struggle to convey their information needs from there. He remembers Tiphaine Holly, thankfully. He remembers a great deal about his life in the late twenties and early thirties and would be more than happy to tell them everything about it, but very little of his tangential reminiscence is remotely on topic. 

He also heard about Kim and Titus — it sounds like their relationship has been a source of local entertainment, although Titus commands too much respect to be emasculated by it. He wants Kim to know he has no problem with homo-sexuals. He wants to tell them about other homo-sexuals he’s known — no, now he’s talking about a trans-gender woman who currently works at the harbor, which with his typical empathy isn’t the awkward disaster of a topic Kim might have expected given Leo’s general naivety. 

They manage to wrangle him. With patience, they bring him to the subject of their list of interviewees, picking up obscure trivia about them and finally getting in the question of who else they might speak to with a memory of those years.

"I think Didier Arnaud is just the man you’re looking for. He used to be foreman in the twenties. A mighty good foreman, too. He and Missus Holly and Mister Flick Harvey ran the union between them in the twenties. Mister Flick died years back. Just wore out, poor old Mister Flick did. Had a bad spell of tuberculosis and never recovered."

"Mister Didier, though?" Kim prompts.

"Mister Didier! People say he’s a real treasure of the community. Folks don’t tend to live so long in Martinaise, but he can tell you all about how they founded the union, about the revolution, even about the suzer-ain-tee. I reckon he’ll have plenty to say ‘bout Missus Holly and the ee-lection," Leo says brightly. 

He goes on to give them colorful, creative directions to Arnaud’s house that make no reference to street names.

A pause, then, and an unusual look of perplexity.

"Something wrong?" Harry prompts.

Leo leans even further forward in his chair, lowering his voice confidentially.

"Listen, misters, I don’t want to say anything bad about nobody. You know I don’t, you do."

Harry nods sympathetically.

"We know that, Leo. You’re always generous about everybody, even the people who were scabbing outside the gates. But if there’s something we should know about Mister Didier…"

Leo looks at a loss, looking between Harry and Kim. He fixes his attention on Kim, then.

"He doesn’t much like folks what’s from Seol, mister, I’m sorry to say. I don’t know what he’s got against you. Just heard him talking with some of the boys before, Seol this and that." The little man sounds genuinely sorry, as if he’s failed them through the existence of this Arnaud’s private failing. "He still comes around the harbor sometimes, looks in on us," he goes on. "But he doesn’t seem to have problems with me, and you know I’m from Ubi Sunt? and how some people, they look down on us, spread those nasty rumors. Say we’re too simple and don’t deserve democracee just because people there do honest farm work."

Kim offers a gentle correction.

"I’m not from Seol, Leo. I’m from Revachol."

It’s not that this misunderstanding wounds him, but that he wouldn’t want the thought to fester in retrospect when he’s so fond of Leo. He knows this Arnaud may sour his day.

Leo looks surprised at himself, as if coming to a realization, and he nods understanding.

"Of course, mister. I should have known, what by your accent. Didn’t mean nothing by it," he says. He squints into the air, getting thoughtful. "People on the radio, they say all kinds of things about Seol but I don’t rightly know if I ever _have_ met somebody from Seol. They say they don’t let nobody go there and seems like here at the harbor I’ve mostly met folks like you. I say, ‘Are you from Seol, then?’ because the radio makes it sound real mysterious like and I’m the curious kind and they say, ‘No, I’m from Graad,’ or maybe they’re from Mesque or Oranje." The smile returns to Leo’s face. "I hear there’s folks from Seol in La Delta, working with fancy ee-lec-tronics, but the missus and I never have been out to La Delta on account everything there’s so expensive."

Kim supposes he invited this particular onslaught of words.

"Nonetheless, thank you for letting us know about Mr. Arnaud’s attitude toward Seolites. It’s an unfortunately popular position," he says, trying to impart conclusivity.

It doesn’t take.

"Revachol should have no place for that, no sir. She’s a young city. Everybody here’s family comes from somewhere, not like Iraesh back home." Somehow, from Leo’s tone, Kim feels like ‘Iraesh back home’ might be the topic to dwarf all other topics. "You know there’s buildings six hundred years old in Iraesh? The pub where dad used to drink was the same place Ubis have been drinking six hundred whole years! Has drystane walls from the old quarry, real solid like. It’s a shame Ubi Sunt? disappearing into the pale like it is, because—"

Harry puts on a big smile and breaks in loudly.

"We’ve gotta interrupt you, Leo. We’ve got a lot of police business to cover, today. But maybe another time you can tell me more about Ubi Sunt?. My mom and I have been talking and my granddad was Ubi, too. He was born in Revachol but his parents were fresh off the boat."

Kim has known Harry has been speaking to his mother after going through the difficulty of convincing her his amnesia is genuine and not a strategy to try and get at more of her money, but he hasn’t heard every detail of their conversations. This, he supposes, explains Harry’s familiarity with Ubi folk dancing.

Leo looks delighted.

"Imagine that, Mister Harry! You and me could even be related like." He visibly remembers himself, then, though with nothing but warmth on his face. "But I understand you’re here on important business. It’s been good to talk to you both again."

"It’s always good to talk to you too," Kim says, his own expression warming. For all the terrible things he’s seen, it’s good to know there are genuinely kind people in their otherwise poorly-dubbed Elysium.

They step out of the office onto the walkway, Roundabout North waiting before them. 

Harry puts his hands on his hips, surveying the scene, taking a minute to take stock.

"Once we square away business with Titus we can follow up our other leads, and if we come up dry we can try this Arnaud guy," he suggests. 

Kim appreciates him offering him an out. He doesn’t want to deal with some kind of conspiracist. But he smiles.

"Are you sure we shouldn’t try him first? We haven’t found the racist that grants us three wishes, yet."

\----

The Union box doesn’t open until 16:00 hours unless they’re there to place a big order, so Ruby, Léandre and Zdeno sit at the far end of the Whirling’s cafeteria from the bar, chatting in the airy, sunlit space. The kitchen doesn’t open until 13:00, so the place offers the luxury of an indoor spot without a lot of people to overhear.

The boys are working out. Léandre took longer than Zdeno to get used to the number of deliveries they’re coordinating, but she’s comfortable to leave either of them operating the switchboard in her absence.

They have seventy-two drivers right now and as the bulk shipments have started arriving they’re still looking to expand. The drivers are scattered across a variety of companies and make their regular pickups at the harbor, leaving with a little something extra tucked away in their lorries which they transport to rendezvous points around the city.

Sometimes contingencies mean Ruby and her boys transport a load themselves. That’s riskier. Not only is there the possibility they’ll run afoul of the RCM, but they risk being pegged by the besmerties. The regular pickups are well masked by the diversity of drivers making extra on their deliveries.

The money is flowing again, and that’s what matters. It’s a vital source of income for paying the salaries of the whole Union, especially while the new above-the-table contracts are getting worked out.

To say Ruby is surprised to suddenly be approached by the two RCM officers who come in through the cafe door would understate her situation. Despite the cheerful smile she turns on, she’s immediately on edge, the hair on the back of her neck prickling as her survival instincts take hold.

Years of living outside the law and at risk from the Madre outfit’s besmertie rivals put her on the defensive, but she reminds herself these have been, for whatever reason, friendly cops, and also that word had come down that they’re not answering to the RCM anymore.

None of her apprehension comes through in her voice as she greets the officers.

"Hey, Harry. And… somehow I haven’t caught your name."

"Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi."

She hasn’t gotten a good look at Kim, before, seeing how for most of their previous encounter he was shuddering on his knees with his eyes rolled back in his head. She was only talking to Harry.

Although, honestly, she might not have turned the pale emitter down far enough for Harry to rally and knock it over if Kim hadn’t been in such a bad way. She really thought she might kill him. As scared as she was she couldn’t watch him die like that, shaking and suffering until some merciful rupture in his brain put him beyond the pain.

He’s completely self-posesssed, now. Taller than she thought but as scrawny as she remembered, the high hairline biases her toward a higher estimate of his age, but he looks way, way younger than Harry.

She isn’t much of an opinion-haver on dudes, but she’s interested in him as far as he’s a sibling queer and her closest ally’s… what? Fuck buddy?

From the formality of his tone she can guess one thing.

"Sounds like you’re not in town to see Hardie."

"Not exactly," Harry says, a lot more affable than Kim. "We are looking for him, though."

That’s great news, because it means they aren’t looking for her. At least, if they are they’re doing them the courtesy of going through the right channels.

She looks to Zdeno, prompting. She saw them talking earlier, out on the roundabout.

"He and Al went to deal with some teenagers out in the neighborhood, regular hooliganism stuff. They should be getting back, though," the man says.

She slides her eyes back to Harry, gauging him.

"You’re not here about…"

Harry gets serious a second, shaking his head 

"No, you’re fine. It’s something else."

His amiable grin returns.

Kim remains exactly as placid as he’s looked since Ruby lay eyes on them.

"For the record, the RCM’s official position is not that you’re ‘fine.’"

No threat in that. A polite correction. 

Léandre has been watching Kim the whole time, total focus. 

To be twenty-four and figuring sexuality out, she thinks.

"You’re Titus’ cop, though?" 

"I don’t believe that’s accurate, either," Kim says, cooling further.

Ruby winces.

"Chilly. You guys didn’t have a fight, did you?"

Harry holds the back of his hand to his mouth between his lips and Kim, stage whispering.

"He’s trying to maintain professional boundaries."

The slighter man beside him sighs, straightening his correct posture that much further.

"Yes. Thank you for clarifying that, officer," he says with a small, polite smile that reads completely sarcastic.

At least the guy’s not frigid.

"Who are you here after?" Léandre asks, suddenly refocused and a lot more serious.

Ruby wants to know that, too, but she’s pretty sure Hardie will want to do this questioning himself.

"Andre, let’s leave that to the boss and Alain, alright?"

Harry’s eyebrows rise. He looks between Léandre and Zdeno.

"Either of you guys remember Tiphaine Holly?"

The five of them share a careful silence, feeling the situation out. 

Ruby doesn’t want to be too abrupt, too rude. It’ll set a bad mood. She can see Zdeno has something waiting on the tip of his tongue. She gives the dark haired man the nod.

"I know who she was. She was forewoman before the Claires took over," he says to Harry with a shrug. "She came by our house a couple times after my mom had an accident at the harbor." He pauses on that. "But I don’t have anything to say about her."

"We’re not building a case against her. We’re looking into her disappearance," Kim assuages.

Ruby keeps up the friendly smile. That’s not hard to do when she’s genuinely more relaxed. It looks like this has nothing to do with her at all.

"You’re building a case against _somebody_. Sorry, but I have to shut this conversation down."

Thankfully, the officers seem to accept that. Then, something changes in Harry’s expression. There’s a spark of recognition.

"Hey. You’re a Hardie, now, aren’t you? That’s great, Ruby," he says. The words warm her. She is, and it feels good. "These are some of the new guys?"

Skepticism quickly takes over. She looks from Harry to Kim, trying to get a read on both of them.

Kim actually looks kind of apologetic, however stern.

"He isn’t trying to implicate you in a crime. This is how he is."

That tracks. There’s nothing really suspicious about their behavior.

Harry wasn’t lying back under the FELD building, he opens people up just by talking.

"I want to catch up, guys, but you need to sort this whole ‘police’ thing out first." She gives them a knowing look. "Now, go find Hardie."

They don’t ask for directions, but she figures it’s not hard to know there’s one road into the neighborhood and one road out of town.

She’s relieved not to be a part of that conversation. She doesn’t see a world where Hardie likes this, Kim coming around on whatever sketchy RCM business when Hardie just went through the wringer with the police with over sleeping with Klaasje. 

She’d be irked.

He did kind of ask for this one, trying to get with a cop.

\----

Harry and Kim wait politely at the edge of town. Kim first reviews his notes from their interview with Evrart, then tucks his notebook away inside his jacket and chooses to wait with his hands folded behind his back. He gives off a ‘not much for talking’ vibe and Harry lets him be.

The people who pass them try to ignore them. They know it’s a bad idea making eye contact with cops. He doesn’t blame them for feeling that way. Nobody wants to talk to a cop, but especially here in Martinaise where they have less jurisdiction than they ever had before. Just standing out in the open on their street is a ‘fuck you’ to the natural order of things.

The natural order of things is this guy coming up the street in charge, looking as Martinaise as ever in camo pants and black fingerless gloves, still decked out in his rowing club jacket and ball cap, his tattooed right hand man beside him. 

Harry can’t help looking forward to talking with Titus, like maybe this won’t be that bad. They did good work together. Bouncing ideas off him about ballistics and their ability to place Ruby at the scene of the crime felt as natural as working with Kim or Jean once he and Kim cracked his aggression over Klaasje and the scheme she’d committed him to.

He wishes Titus had taken him up on joining the 41st. They’re still looking for a second sergeant for C-Wing. He’d fit right in as a satellite officer for Rosales, if everybody agreed to ignore the fact he’s a mobster who’s put a lot of people in the ground. 

Harry’s not arguing there hasn’t been narcotics trafficking and summary executions.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: The RCM demands talent and dedication, not self-flagellation for surviving in Revachol West. 

Titus doesn’t hurry up on account of them waiting. 

CONCEPTUALIZATION: He remains fixated on dominance signaling, like a mastiff or a gorilla.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Don’t let this bastard bully you. You’re one hundred and ninety centimeters and he’s past his prime.

RHETORIC: Not remotely as far past his prime as you.

Titus doesn’t speak until he's a step into their space, his gaze pausing on Kim before fixing on Harry.

PERCEPTION (Sight): A fleeting wince on his rocky brow.

EMPATHY: He doesn’t want to deal with the sense of betrayal.

"Some fucking people," he says, looking Harry up and down with Alain paying them more equal attention beside him.

COMPOSURE: His partner is prepared to take over handling either or both of you.

Titus fixes his hands on his hips, heaving a sigh, assuming the burden of the fact this entire conversation has to happen.

"Who are you, anyway?" he asks, squinting down at Harry from beneath the brim of his ball cap.

Point of fact, Harry’s never given him his name.

There’s a few ways to handle that. Harry chooses fishing his wallet out of his blazer pocket while keeping up eye contact with Titus and wearing a grin as inoffensive as his well worn expression can be. He only glances down to retrieve his badge. He hands it over for Titus to review.

Nothing says ‘nothing to see here, officer’ like handing over a piece of identification. 

Titus reviews it before handing it back with a chummy grin. 

"Yeah, I’m not calling you ‘Harrier.’"

"You could choose to address him as ‘Officer Du Bois,’" Kim interjects.

—he’s not happy at being excluded.

Titus shifts his attention, pointing one blunt finger at the lieutenant.

"That’s out."

AUTHORITY: Assert yourself. This could devolve quickly.

"It’s just ‘Harry,’" Harry says, projecting his voice just loud enough to break the staredown threatening to kick up.

Titus folds his arms over his barrel chest, Alain standing calm and collected beside him.

"Kim. Harry." Titus nods to each of them. "Glad to see you here together. I understood you two were having some friction."

DRAMA: The sly, smug tone of voice isn’t meant to dig under _your_ skin.

"You misunderstood," Kim articulates conclusively.

It was an excuse he was setting up to go all in on Kim, and Kim invited it.

"Guess I did," Titus says slowly. "Guess we could say that about a few things."

HALF LIGHT: They’re ready to fight.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: The lieutenant has every milliliter as much testosterone as Titus Hardie while you lost yours to endocrine damage from rampant alcoholism.

AUTHORITY: Titus feels betrayed by this challenge to his authority. Kim is prepared to defend his right to be here. 

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: No. Eye contact like that? They’d probably be naked already without you and Alain here. These guys want to fuck.

EMPATHY: An incipient relationship doesn’t dissolve over one flash point.

LOGIC: Think. You and Kim _were_ in conflict when Kim last came here.

Harry puts it together. Kim doesn’t want to expose him, besides itching for the fight.

RHETORIC: Completely and utterly debase yourself. They won’t see that coming.

He clears his throat, then lets the honesty tumble out.

"I started drinking again after a month off the juice. I dumped my shit on Kim. Nobody should have to deal with that." 

It still hurts. Hurting Kim really hurt. He didn’t want to do that. 

He has their attention. He pushes on, not holding back the raw from his voice:

"We can talk about it. I’m not ashamed I’m trying to quit."

The perplexed expression Titus invariably gets when Harry betrays the unspoken guy code Titus functions on comes over the bigger man. Meanwhile, the pain is too fresh for Kim to remember to resent being contradicted.

DRAMA: Excellent work, liege. You stole the spotlight.

Titus looks to Alain, who’s observing the situation with nothing to offer, then he looks back to Harry, breaking the stilted silence.

"Here I was gonna offer to buy you a beer."

The air is too heavy for him to play it off totally flippant, but his instinct is to help Harry save face.

Harry smiles at the kindness and encourages the rising mood.

"You can still offer Kim one, but he’ll probably say no."

"I would prefer to remain sober," Kim politely defers.

PAIN THRESHOLD: No one’s pretending you’re not all miserable, now. That’ll keep the mood down.

PERCEPTION (Sight): Alain doesn’t share in this misery. Instead, the Mesque is watching you closely, attentively gauging your actions.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: He recognizes his duty to relieve his commanding officer when the moment comes. He won’t be moved by the battle bond you share.

Titus wets his lips, smacking his tongue. He spits tobacco juice to the side, onto the asphalt.

It makes Harry want a cigarette.

"Sucks to hear you’re not here to drink with us. Means you’re about to back up a lorry and dump a load of RCM bullshit." He tilts his head, eyeing Harry. "You thought staying off the hooch might be more trouble than it’s worth?"

_Titus would prefer this to be a conversation between friends._

Kim intercedes.

"We’re investigating the disappearance of Tiphaine Holly."

He’s not about to allow their attention to duty to be compromised.

The big man still standing in their space looks to Alain, again, in genuine perplexity.

"Al, you know who that is?"

"Haven’t heard of her."

"She was the union forewoman. She disappeared twenty years ago, on the last day of the local chapter elections," Harry rattles off. 

Understanding dawns, not for Alain but for Titus.

"I remember something about that," he says. "Didn’t know her name was Tiphaine."

The ex-convict beside him takes one step forward.

HALF LIGHT: Closing in for the kill. 

AUTHORITY: Prepare yourself.

"Tell us what charges they’ve got you sniffing after or get out of here with this shit. There’s no Option C."

The way Titus shifts his weight back, subtly opening up space, cedes ground to Alain.

Kim’s eyes slide sideways, brief eye contact saying he’ll let Harry lead.

He’s too proud to make a graceful concession.

RHETORIC: I see no Option C. 

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Oh yes there is. It’s the one where you catch a punch.

ENDURANCE: We could take it.

AUTHORITY: Titus would respect that.

VOLITION: As much as you enjoy proving your manhood to Titus, you’re only going to get punched for him to find out anyway.

Harry gives Alain the respect of giving him his full attention.

"We’re following up on a lead Edgar Claire was involved in her disappearance."

Alain maintains control with that steady gaze that says he’s faced scores of police shakedowns, and witnessed more.

"They say it was extortion, kidnapping, or having her whacked?"

A slight change in posture says Kim has an appeal.

_The lieutenant is willing to be cooperative now that he wasn’t the one to concede._

"You know how this works better than anyone. We need to compare unbiased accounts. Input on our part could prejudice someone to misremember something last week, let alone twenty years ago."

Alain nods along with his words, totally unmoved. 

_That’s how it works, for cops, but he doesn’t play cop games._

He doesn’t take his eyes off Kim.

"T, it’s your call, but I say you tell them they wanna discuss this like men they play it straight or they fuck right off."

_There’s no overt hostility there. He resents playing nice with the RCM, but his principled distaste lacks aggression._

Titus exhales a big, heavy sigh, his thumbs hooked in his pockets. He looks at both of them.

"Feeling a lot of motivation to side with Al, here."

"The lead is credible," Kim explains.

Titus smiles.

"Goody for it." That smile fades into flinty sobriety. "Guys, you did a big thing for this town. And now you’re trying to burn up all that good will pushing this Moralintern _bullshit_. You think I can’t see the RCM’s dug up a cold case to help out Wild Pines?"

Harry can at least disabuse him of that notion.

"This is brand new. We took the initial statement, ourselves."

Alain fixes all his attention on Harry.

"You’re not just trying to stick a charge on Edgar because nothing sticks to the besmerties, are you?"

ESPRIT DE CORPS: His suspicions aren’t unfounded. Due to Lieutenant Double-Yefreitor Du Bois’ commitment to going out in an alcohol doused conflagration, C-Wing could use a big win with or without an arrest.

People are warming up to Harry, even or maybe especially because he’s been trying so hard despite not getting very far, but boy do they still hate Lieutenant Double-Yefreitor Du Bois.

Harry stays candid. Sharing freely with the Hardies earned them a lot more respect than wagging dicks, last time around.

"We’d always love to get our clearance rate up, but this was an RMP case back in ‘31. Opening our own investigation may actually make our clearance rate worse."

Alain doesn’t like it. All of Harry makes it explicit that Alain hates it. But the Mesque decides to repay that candor — cautiously.

EMPATHY: Just like Ruby, these two want to stay conversational.

"You said twenty years ago?" he considers. "I was rotting in a Moralintern hellhole."

That's the cue Titus can open up, that Alain doesn’t have any more to interrogate.

Titus spits the saliva built up in his silence.

"I only cared about pussy and hard liquor, sure as hell not union politics."

DRAMA: There’s no deception here.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: This guy lives drunk, pops recreational drugs and fucks twenty-something hotties at this age. I bet he has awesome stories.

"What about the rest of the Hardies?" Kim inquires mildly, but with a rapt gaze.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: He’s thinking the same thing. Except it gets him going.

COMPOSURE: Speculation. You can’t actually get that close of a read. He’s attentive to Titus now that the mood has relaxed, but then no one’s confused he likes him.

Titus rubs his chin, amicably turning it over. All his attention is for Kim. 

"Lemmie think. Eugene would have been in his twenties by then. Got a new guy might be old enough to remember something. And who really knows what kids might overhear?"

The mountain of a man’s expression and posture abruptly solidifies to intractability.

"Except you’re not singling anybody out. Nobody’s opening any cans. You’re dropping this. If I see you talking to my people? I’m running you out of town. In fact, I’m not sure why I’m not doing that right now."

_He was only willing to play along so far._

Kim remains unflappable.

"Evrart gave us his permission to investigate. As long as we can do our job without being shot, that’s enough."

EMPATHY: Titus doesn’t like that, the idea of shooting Kim. His aggression fails.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Alain won’t consider that, either. These are your comrades in arms, they won’t turn on you so easily.

"Even I like you guys," Alain grudges.

Now that they’ve backed off posturing, they both look cagey, exchanging glances.

They’re reluctant to come out with it. Titus spits to the side, again, working himself up to what he has to say.

"I know we both agree you can do your job without being shot — _by us_."

The final words land heavy.

Alain spares a look toward the town center ahead of him, dropping his voice like somebody could overhear.

"This place is on edge. You need to watch your backs. That’s not a threat."

Titus’ hands are back on his hips. He has the same wary demeanor as the Mesque. 

DRAMA: He wants to speak. Encourage him.

"Titus?" Harry prompts.

Unlike Alain, when he’s worked himself up to it Titus doesn’t lower his voice.

"I’m not saying we don’t owe you a bail out, just try not to do anything to make us look like Moralintern peones."

_He cares less if people are suspicious of him than he does about making them more suspicious of Harry and Kim, and they will be if he acts subversive._

ESPRIT DE CORPS: He isn’t ashamed that he pays his debts. If he didn’t have his loyalty, he’d have no faith in himself to do his job.

Harry relaxes into a smile.

"We’ll try not to."

VOLITION: You only have so many friends. Keep these.

He remembers Titus, only a couple of beers into the day’s mourning, extending him an invitation to join the Hardie outfit, and Titus later that day, too, as he passed back through the Whirling.

_"Hey, it's you again!" The big man says, lurching out of his brooding with sudden joy, teetering where he sat well on the road to self obliteration. "I've been thinking about it and you know what... we're both cops. This city is big enough for two cops."_

_He blinks glassy eyes as he registers Kim, behind him._

_"Okay..." Harry can see him slowly revising his math, or maybe for a minute he loses track of his sentence. "Three cops," he says decisively, smile even wider, beer sloshing as he uses it to point to Kim. "Me, you, and your little friend here."_

That’s where he wants to be. On his good side. Building on the foundation they laid, not undermining it.

CONCEPTUALIZATION: There is kinship in upholding law, in battle, in being the body of the international proletariat, and in experiencing the world as bi-sexuals. 

The last one is where Titus’ mind suddenly lies. There’s still more he wants to say, but it doesn’t have anything to do with policing Martinaise, and it’s only for Kim.

He’s not planning to say it, just looking at the lieutenant with stony reservation, imparting, if nothing else, how much of him is rebelling at being forced to treat the man as a law officer first and exclusively.

EMPATHY: You know that feeling. It isn’t pleasant when he’s your lieutenant before he’s your friend.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Let’s be honest here, you’re not exactly a stranger to wanting to bone with him, either.

PAIN THRESHOLD: You can give up on that idea. You don’t look like Titus Hardie.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You didn’t listen to me and you let yourself go. There’s no point in even trying to compete.

The moment passes. Titus averts his eyes. Tobacco juice hits the road.

"...come on, Al."

He starts on his way into town.

Alain pauses to give them a last look over, then turns away.

"Right behind you."

Kim couldn’t have less of an expression, his face a blank canvas wiped of his emotions.

"That’s it then," he says. "We have work to do, detective."

Harry wants to probe him, but this isn’t the time.

\----

Titus understands what he set himself up for.

He got in bed with a cop, and, fucking surprise, the guy turned out to be a cop.

"I look like one dumb fuck."

Alain remains unflappable. Titus appreciates that about him. There’s a world of bitterness under the surface, a lifetime of pain, but the man who came to Titus to lay down his gun and turn to honest dock work eight years ago and tried to burn off his gang tattoos with a hot iron has stood strong for him time and again.

"Would’ve told you better if you asked me," Alain says, "but I’ve got your back. We’d owe them whether you fucked him or not, it’s just bad optics, now."

"Thanks, Al," Titus drawls sarcastically. Really sets his mind at ease.

The fact the balding man has his back actually does, but not the bare fact some people will mistake a commitment to Harry and Kim’s safety as being about getting more ass.

It’s a knife in the back that Kim didn’t tell him he was coming to Martinaise. There’s no way he didn’t already know it two days ago. 

Oh, sure, Titus can think of reasons, and not a single one of them makes him feel like less of an idiot. He doesn’t even want to look at the ways he feels betrayed.

He stops in the roundabout, scowling up at the offensively tone deaf statue of Filippe III, not for any particular reason but to buy a moment to think, but spitting brown, wet saliva at the foot of the plaque feels a special sort of spiteful. 

He’s glad he’s got a hog under his lip, feeding him that buzz.

He really worked himself up to that phone call. He went through the phase of questioning committing to a regular thing with a guy, and the one where he had to admit sticking around Kim might not be what you’d call _emotionally rewarding_ , and he had to ask himself if he really wanted to be seeing a lot of one person, whoever they were. And the whole cop thing, he questioned that.

He kept coming back to the same answer. He likes him and he wants to fuck him. 

He’s mad at him for having the gall to show up here and try to make him fall in line with his pig bullshit. Madder than he is at Harry, but Harry didn’t just shoot him down under false pretenses, did he?

He still wants to lay him out, tell him his cop life is over, and dick him harder than he dicked anybody in his life.

"Boss, that faschas been dead a long time," Alain says.

Titus squares his jaw and drags his eyes from the statue.

"Hope they get in just enough hot water to get to _put_ them back in that Tip Top death trap," Titus says with a mean, hard smile.

Alain’s eyes follow the two RCM officers making their own way through the town center.

"The sooner they’re out of here the better. The Moralintern has to know nobody cares if Claire offed a broad two decades back."

"Guess it’s just one little piece of whatever they’ve got cooking," Titus says, not liking the shape of the thing at all. It’s already a distraction they don’t need.

"How soon do you think they’ll come after our operation?"

Titus lifts his ball cap to scratch his scalp.

"Ingolf says seeing as the aerostatics are Samaran the Coalition won’t risk an inter-isola conflict by seizing one, but I figure the 57th will be on Terminal B pretty soon. Raid, maybe?"

Alain looks grim.

"It’ll be bloody if they try it. You’re not nixing shooting _all_ cops, are you?"

Titus fixes his cap back on his head.

"No, Al. I reckon I’m not."


	8. Chapter 8

**Friday, 23 April ‘51**

**Afternoon**

He still feels Titus’ eyes on him. His hard, accusative gaze. He already knows the things they could have said, at least part of them: Titus’ _How dare you_ , how dare he show up here without telling him when they’d just been on the phone, or how dare he think he can keep showing up expecting them to bend over, or, somewhere down the line, his own retort that if Titus cared about enforcing order he’d be helping them investigate a murder regardless of his financial ties to the suspect, but Kim knows he’s only the Claires’ muscle.

He would have let his own words escalate to show Titus he’s entirely capable of squaring off with him verbally if he chooses, and Titus would have started yelling. 

The man isn’t wrong to feel betrayed, and shouting is one of his go-to tactics for defending his home ground. 

Kim’s only surprised by the manifestation of his own defiance. He hardly goes around pitting his machismo against other men’s. 

He understands himself, at least a little — that it’s normal, when you feel close to someone, to be emotive, and he’s never been in this situation with a friend before. Not this situation nor one even remotely close to it.

Now that he knows he’s susceptible, it won’t surprise him, again. Titus can yell if he wants. He’s not going to try to compete.

It’s better to think about his itch to fight than that pause before Titus pulled himself away. No matter what’s going on politically, Titus has been good to him. Kim’s not confused about that. He’s not equipped to say as much, either. Not on the street in front of Harry and Alain. Probably not alone, because his inclination is never to talk about these things.

In this case physical action could easily smooth things over, but that would move things in the opposite direction of the desexualized one he intends.

It’s moot. He and Harry will investigate, as professionals, and then they’ll leave. If he does speak to Titus beyond the scope of the investigation, it will be on the phone, after that. He’ll apologize for having to show up unannounced. He can’t picture anything more than that between them. 

He’s not immune to the attraction he feels, or the fact that in an apolitical world he could stand to see more of him. It just seems unlikely to matter.

He has plenty of time to think about it all, because he and Harry are doing a lot of footwork. For nothing. A fruitless tour of Martinaise where he and Harry track down the addresses of Tiphaine Holly’s close friends and associates and, invariably, the targets of their interviews won’t speak to them. 

Sometimes, they’re turned away at the door on account of their watermarks. _We don’t speak to the RCM._ Other times there’s small talk, on the porch or in a living room, up to the point the subject of their investigation comes around and they’re politely sent packing.

It seems no one who lives in Martinaise has the backbone to inform on the Claires.

"I think it’s time to try the foreman," Harry says, standing on the sidewalk in front of the typical wrought iron fence with a few chips of pre-revolutionary white paint stubbornly resisting making room for more rust.

"I agree. It can’t go any worse," Kim says.

They backtrack to follow Leo’s colorful instructions. They already identified the little blue house with the lean-to shed on the corner with the mossy old tree. It’s relatively easy to go from there.

Kim accepts it may be an unpleasant encounter. 

How many other _unpleasant encounters_ has he had in his life? Over forty years he’s been cursed at, spat on, ranted at, physically threatened, but most frequently subject to much more subtle suspicion and aggression. Even within his own precincts. 

He remembers a tense encounter backed against a locker in the 24th in Faubourg, a half brother turning suddenly in the narrow space between them. _I’ve got my eye on you, you yellow fuck._

Anger surged through him, his pulse pounding in his ears. Fists clenched, his nails bit into his palms, even as he leaned his weight against the steel behind him, putting as much distance between them as possible, prepared to take a swing if the man became aggressive.

He’d been twenty-three. He knew, in his gut, he couldn’t swing. He’d spent two years training for this opportunity. He couldn’t cut loose with his tongue, either, knowing he’d provoke the man to attack his reputation.

He’d been a rookie and suddenly aware that he couldn’t count on fraternity to ensure he’d get an ambulance in time if he got shot. It shook him.

He watched his own partner closely over the next few weeks, quietly looking for any kind of sign that belief in the Seolite Conspiracy was wider spread than he imagined in the RCM.

They let themselves in the iron gate and approach the door of Didier Arnaud. He keeps a neat lawn with beds of rose bushes, some blooming, others only thorny and green. His house is kept up, it even sports an unusually well tiled roof. Kim imagines much of the retired man’s time must be spent in this yard, pruning and fertilizing these bushes and maintaining the old house.

They knock, and Arnaud answers. He’s a well sized man with liver spots on his tough, sun-aged skin wearing a big pair of overalls, bifocals perched on his nose. He could still be in his seventies, given the sun damage, but Kim places him in his early eighties. He appreciates what Leo made a point of: it’s rare for a man to live this long, here in Revachol West.

Arnaud doesn’t look pleased to find the police on his stoop. 

He gives them both a critical inspection, and if he spends longer on Kim, well, Leo warned to expect as much. Even if Leo hadn’t, by the time he’s been given the once over Kim would consider it obvious.

"RCM officers? In Martinaise? Again?" the man says, inspection completed. "And the same ones as in March, if I’m not mistaken."

"Yes. The very same," Kim says, maintaining a polite tone. 

There’s no point in antagonizing him when they’re this spare on witnesses.

"We’re following up on a lead that turned up back then," Harry says with his friendly grin. "You think you might be able to help us out? It’s about an old friend, Tiphaine Holly."

The man’s demeanor changes. He had looked judgemental, although not hostile, but his aged face softens at the name, blue eyes searching Harry’s green.

"Tiff? You mean you know what happened to her? Come in. Both of you."

He beckons with his big hand, knuckles knots of bone, ushering then through the doorway.

The furniture is antecentennial, carved with flourish. He seems to have re-tiled the floor, if Titus’ house is anything to go by. There are paintings on the wall in gilded frames, and there may be real gold to them. There’s a framed map of Le Caillou. Plants give the whole house a breath of life.

Kim has seen royalist decor, mostly reclaimed pieces scattered among other furniture. It seems as likely this man scavenged his decor back when working men were first moving into this once-resort neighborhood as that he otherwise collected it. Buying antiques from Revachol East would be a formidable financial commitment, and he clearly has an enthusiasm for preservation and restoration.

For a moment Kim feels out of place, until he internalizes it’s the house that’s out of place.

Unlike a younger man like Gary, clawing at an imaginary caricature of a past where he might have been born into dignity, this man robbed the rich for the dignity no one ever afforded him.

Kim and Harry take their seats on the stiff and uncomfortable fine furniture in one convenient little grouping of chairs that conjures up images of wealthier men talking economics over cigars and brandy.

Kim pulls out his compact notebook from the inner breast of his jacket to take notes.

"Tiphaine Holly. Never thought I’d hear that name again," Arnaud says as he chooses a leather armchair, lowering himself carefully with a hint of arthritis. "Tell me what you’ve found out."

"I’m going to level with you. We have testimony that Edgar Claire had her shot, and we’re short on people who aren’t terrified of him," Harry says.

Kim approves, in this case. It’s a straightforward appeal to an old socialist’s pride.

"So it was Edgar, then. I believe you. Those boys bilked me out of a say in the operations of a union I founded with my own blood," Arnaud says, lifting his button-up shirt to show a mess of scar tissue, an old bullet wound to the abdomen, to punctuate his grudge. "I’ve sat quiet on that because their strikes came through for the men, and the women. But they’re crooked, no question."

He’s talking to Harry, but his eyes flicker to Kim, and not in a way that makes him feel included in the conversation. It’s a dis-ease in Arnaud, and a disease of the mind, besides that.

He wonders what it would take to make a bigot stop.

"Our informant is the gunman himself. He says she fell over the railing of the bridge that crosses the canal," Kim relates with professional removal. "His testimony implies he could see her in the water. This tells us the water lock was open at the time. You can see the difficulty this poses in hoping to find material evidence."

"But the killer was posted out at the old sea fortress. A recluse. If we could put Edgar on that island, we might have a case," Harry pursues.

The man steeples his fingers.

"That’ll be hard to do. It’s easy to put the Claires in the Martinaise inlet. We all know they love reel fishing. You could put Edgar on that island a hundred times. He could have been having lunch." Arnaud sniffs, disdainful, though not, in this case, of them. "Placing Edgar out there with a recluse he can’t claim was a fishing buddy? You’re in a tight situation, but you know that."

Visceral discomfort and a spark of anger unsettles Kim as Arnaud’s eyes hold his too long. There’s a familiar question on the man’s leathery face: _Why are_ you _here?_

Kim decompresses with a long, nasal exhalation.

Arnaud squints at him. 

"We don’t see many Seolites in Martinaise."

Maybe he’s been trying to provoke a reaction this whole time. Kim isn’t going to excavate a more charitable explanation when the obvious one is almost invariably correct.

The man wants to have it out. Alright.

He adopts faux pleasantry, sarcasm audible.

"I’m sure my grandparents came to Revachol to seize its economic glory for the advancement of Seol. Unfortunately for them, there was a revolution, severing the line of transmission. I didn’t inherit any _race secrets_. I’m simply a Revacholian."

"Oh, no," the old foreman agrees. "I didn’t mean to imply some sort of wild conspiracy. I just couldn’t sort how you’d end up in the RCM.

"The Seolites were men of the King," he continues, with the fervor of his prejudice. "Men of his navies. This generation thinks you all come here to _spy_ on us. But everybody knows Seol is a superpower free of dependence on foreign commerce, too advanced to care if the rest of us thrive or rot. Has been since before contact. The conspiracy doesn’t make a lick of sense, Seol bothering with backwards Occidentals." He scoffs, shaking his grey head. "The _secrets_ are real. Your grandparents came here because of the technological _secrets_. It’s fallout from the caste system. A low caste Seolite can take any job he wants from a Revacholian." He fixes Kim with a hard gaze. "The communards shot you as royalists and class traitors, not as spies."

Kim recognizes the typical incoherent narrow-mindedness. A moment where he tenuously grasps Kim’s words, grasps that Kim has no knowledge of Seol at all, _the Seolites were_ , and then _you_ , _you_ , _you_. 

This antecentennial variety of hatred, that part’s something he hasn’t heard articulated. If other old bigots he’s brushed with have hated him for reminding them of their relative poverty under the Suzerain, they haven’t made it explicit.

Kim thinks of his Auntie Georgette, her caring manner giving way to lips pursed with old traumas back when he still asked about his parents. _Everything was_ political _during the revolution,_ she’d say 

He’s never known what side shot his parents in the year the Commune fell, or what they were shot for. He considers pressing Auntie Georgette, now, better armed with new information.

Or maybe he doesn’t want to make her relive those times. Her politics as an Occidental during the revolution are a mystery to him. He only knows his father, her cousin, had been close to her, and his mother, too, once they married, as well as hearing stories his Seolite grandfather was unpleasant — viscerally disappointed his son pursued art and not medicine.

"I suppose, then, that since I’m just another ghetto Revacholian my grandparents are getting what they deserve," he says, a biting edge to his words, the whole awful business pouring back.

He’s sick of these people. 

"I don’t know about you, Kim, but I love coming out to Martinaise. There’s a new and exciting strain of racist everywhere you turn."

It’s a balm for Harry to have his back. It always is. It’s not a balm that entirely soothes the sting, and certainly not today.

"It could be true the communards executed my parents," he reminds him in a quieter voice. Not accusing. 

He’s not making the same mistake, confounding Harry as responsible for the actions of dead racist communists. He still needs to hear Harry acknowledge that, for his own peace of mind.

"That’s why we keep applying criticism to these ideas. So we can find the right way to turn this whole shit society on its head," Harry says, voice full of gravity and all his attention on Kim. 

It’s impossible to feel completely reassured after a lifetime suffering these indignities, but it’s enough for now.

"You?" the old man interjects, his bewildered focus on Harry.

Kim feels a different flash of anger at the man’s incredulity toward his partner. 

"Yes, he’s a _communist police officer_. He understands politics are complicated and nuanced."

He and Harry will talk about this, sometime in the future, he’s sure, when he’s processed this and he’s prepared for the conversation. He isn’t afraid of that. He believes in Harry’s integrity. Maybe he has to believe in it, when he’s already let him this far in.

He won’t have the man in front of them casting further aspersions against either of them, on a case or not.

Arnaud relents, cracking his gnarled knuckles out of meditative habit, giving them all a moment to breathe.

"You’re here about Tiphaine. That’s what’s important to me. I don’t know why people haven’t been forthcoming, what with the Union making arrests in the streets," he says grimly.

It’s one blow after another. Kim sits stunned.

"They’re doing what?" Harry says, for both of them.

The man waves a spotted hand.

"I don’t mean to make it sound as bad as all that. We have saboteurs. In the harbor." 

If he disdains Seolites and police officers, from his inflection he hates saboteurs, too. 

"The way around here was if you were a besmertie, you caught a bullet. Well, they can’t go executing everybody accused of sabotage, can they?" he goes on. "These are Union men they’re detaining. It’s a temporary measure. But somebody tipping off the RCM, that could be called making trouble to help Wild Pines, too, couldn’t it? You could call that sabotage."

Fatigue catching up all at once, Kim pinches the bridge of his nose, eyes screwed shut.

"It’s the Hardie Boys making these arrests."

The man barks a laugh like old, dry wood cracking.

"Who else would it be?" he asks. "Those youngsters don’t frighten me. I was a tough, too, in my time. I’m ready to be forthcoming. The problem is there’s not much to be forthcoming about."

He sits back in his chair, crossing his arms across his chest and crossing his legs.

"You say she fell in the canal, but we never found a body. There’s been a lot of drownings and a lot of corpses dumped in that canal in my time. The one thing you have on your side is the elections were in late summer," Arnaud explains.

The air has thankfully cleared of tension with his focus turned on their problem, his vile curiosity satiated.

"Now, it’s possible she got stuck on something after she sank, and then you’ve got nothing," he says. "It’s possible, though, that given a few days she swelled up and washed up on Land’s End. They didn’t always let us know when that happened."

Kim’s expression turns to one of confusion.

"The Claires didn’t have that much influence already, did they?"

Arnaud waves a dismissive hand.

"No, no. Back then, they were afraid to get the RCM involved on account of the gangs." He smiles a worn smile. "That’s Martinaise. Never a good town for finks."

Harry clears his throat, index and middle finger tapping on the arm of his chair, a familiar sign he’s craving cigarettes.

"Thanks. It’s something to go on."

The old man nods amenably.

"I hope you two can put this case to rest. She was a stunning woman. The Claires don’t deserve to get away with this. Give me the number for your station and I’ll call if I think of anything else. Bastards can shoot me if that’s what they’re about."

Kim records the needed information on a blank page at the back of the notebook, tearing it out and passing it to the man.

He wishes it was easy to separate the good from the bad, to be able to protect himself against the wrong people and stand with the right ones. 

This man is hostile to him, and an ally, too. 

The Hardie boys aren’t hostile to them, and are clearly executing a frightening escalation.

He’ll focus on this lead, and he’ll do his job, but as they exit the house he resents the entire interaction.

He and Harry step out into the street, Harry’s hand going straight to his jacket pocket for his neglected Astras.

He lights up a soldier and gives it a drag.

"There aren’t many people left in Illisible to remember ‘31, but it’s better than nothing," he says, exhaling through his nose.

"What are we going to do about Titus?" Kim asks, pinning him with a penetrating look. 

He’s not in the right headspace to take point on this.

Harry smokes a minute. He must have spotted a camera, or observer, because he waves at something in the distance, but with his eyesight Kim can’t make out anything in particular in that direction.

Thick fingers tap the ash from the tip of the cigarette.

"If we bring it up with the Hardies, they’ll what? Laugh at us? We could make it a shouting match, I’ll do it, but I don’t think we have the clout to do anything. We may have to just file this one with the higher ups."

Kim accepts that as the most likely scenario, but not a scenario he likes.

"I want to know what’s happening to these people they’ve detained. What kind of conditions they’re being kept under. What they plan to do with them in the long term."

"We could ask them," Harry agrees. "Your idea to remind them what it takes to be a legitimate law enforcement outfit worked with The Pigs."

Kim massages his temples, dying for his cigarette.

He makes a careful, conscious decision this will be the one for the day and near instantaneously it’s between his lips.

"I can’t say I’m stunned they’re doing this," he regrets, pacified by the nicotine. This one small vice.

"Arnaud’s right, it can only get so bad. The rest of the union wouldn’t just let them go around acting like secret police. I mean, it didn’t sound like they’re being secret about it," Harry says.

He looks at Kim a minute, taking his temperature, Kim’s sure.

"Sorry we had to end up here," he says, not too gentle and not too brusque.

Kim nods acknowledgement.

"It’s part of the job."

"We oughta eat, you know. Maybe not at the Whirling, though."

He’s right. It’s nearing dusk, and neither of them have eaten since breakfast. Kim doesn’t imagine its best practice to drive on the 8/81 unsettled _and_ hungry.

\----

The apartment rustles, knocks and slams. Titus is busy rifling the desk, looking and rapping for hidden compartments while he reviews the messy variety of papers it contains. Bryce and Eugene are turning over the kitchen and the bedroom, respectively.

Ruby sits on the couch — they already searched the couch — and somehow this time when Titus looks back she has the wife, toddler in her arms smiling. While a bunch of toughs ransack her apartment. Titus hasn’t felt jealous of Ruby since she got back, but there might be a twinge when he thinks where he might be if he had Ruby’s way with women.

Somewhere north of finding out he got dumped by the cop earlier this morning, and boy he shouldn’t let it keep digging at him but a few hours sure haven’t settled him down.

It’s not a great time for careful, meticulous work but he figures he’s a big boy who’s been blown off before. He’ll handle himself, and he’ll handle all this material. Carefully.

He finishes up with the desk and stands, brushing off his camos, turning a critical eye on the rest of the living room.

He already looked through the tables, the furniture and the bookshelf and behind a couple paintings. He found two bugs, but they’re the kind Ingolf uses so he left them unremarked.

"I think we’re almost done here," he apologizes to the wife.

She smiles up at him, brown eyes worried but hopeful. She’s a good looking woman, he thinks, not making designs on her, just considering how lucky this guy is he has her and her patience and her faith backing him up.

Titus returns the smile, setting the woman further at ease.

"I know things have been hard at the harbor, my husband’s said as much, but I hope this means he’ll be able to come home," she says, the fear she initially displayed coloring the edges of her behavior. "He’s not some kind of spy, Mr. Hardie. He’s an ordinary longshoreman."

"Closing the case’s not my call — Mr. Claire has people checking out the harbor side, too — but unless something turns up on the next ten minutes it’s gonna be my recommendation," he promises.

Ruby says _See?_ and squeezes the woman’s shoulder.

Titus goes to help Bryce finish up in the kitchen, with all the cabinets and the appliances to move.

This isn’t the first or the tenth apartment he’s ransacked. Usually what he’s looking for is guns, somebody’s stock for distribution, maybe a piece of stolen property. Not evidence of corporate espionage. That isn’t exactly his area.

Whatever that looks like, he’s not finding it. There’s not any suspicious written communications here. There was cash hidden in the mattress but a normal amount for a town without a bank. Titus reminded the wife to find a better place to hide their savings. Everybody thinks to look in the mattress.

What he’s really looking for is corporate documents of the kind they found on her husband last night as he left the harbor, based on an anonymous tip called in to the Union office.

Starting to look like that was a set up and the documents had been planted on the husband, leaving them detaining him for no reason and chasing their tails.

If the guy lived alone, searching the apartment would be Ingolf’s team’s thing. He doesn’t, and while everybody knows Evrart has a creepy surveillance unit he and Ingolf have worked out it’d be better for community relations if it’s the Hardies paying house calls. 

People know them. They trust them. The whole ability to make arrests hinges on staying in people’s good books. They’re not the fucking RCM descending on people with those flashy halogen watermarks talking for them, reading people Moralintern law and letter and disappearing them from Revachol West. They’re local boys— local _folks_ who you can call by their first names if it suits you.

Titus wants to let this guy go. He wants the good optics.

"I’ve got nothing, boss," Bryce says. 

"Nothing’s fine."

Titus helps him move the refrigerator back into place, making sure it’s still plugged in.

Eugene is waiting for them in the living room.

"Bedroom checks out," he says. 

They thank the wife for letting them search the apartment. Titus makes nice with the toddler with _Hey there, little guy_ and _Look out for your mom while we figure this out_ — he’s had plenty of experience with little kids with the nephews and now the infant niece. Knows to open his expression up and smile for them so they’re not terrified he’s the size of a horse and has a face like a cliffside, hard angles.

It took him a couple with Tibbs’ first son, Quint, to figure out why the newborn was screaming nonstop when he held him.

"I kept telling the guys having you on board would get women to open up to us," Eugene says to Ruby as they descend the apartment stairs as a gang. "Picture us bringing two big guys like Bryce and T in there without you."

"More than a little terrifying to the woman whose husband they just arrested," Ruby agrees, something sunny in her voice Titus knows is on account of learning Eugene was already sticking up for her.

He scoffs.

"What’s so bad about me? I made friendly, didn’t I?"

"Yeah. You’re alright with kids for leading a militant anti-besmertie murder task force," Ruby ribs with a laugh.

"His brother has a family. Hey, I’ve helped him babysit the boys. You know, tried to teach them guitar," Eugene says.

"Have to get you out to one of our cookouts, Ruby, You too, Bryce, the whole outfit’s invited."

"I’d love to, boss. It be alright if I bring my sister? She’s handy around a smoker and a grill."

"Yeah, why not? Usually end up having a crowd so you better let her know you volunteered her to help out."

He thinks about the guys he just buried. Angus, glad to be invited anywhere with his history of exclusion. Theo, sitting on the log in Tibbs’ yard or inside on Titus’ couch spitting tobacco juice into a spittoon, not unfriendly but silently surveying the bustle from the sidelines. Shanky, spearing pieces of meat with his knife, great fucking table manners. Glen, drunk and loud and more important to keep an eye on than the rugrats. One year he got in a fight. Another, Titus had to haul him to his bedroom and let his drunk ass pass out there.

There’s been other Hardies. Other men he’s lost. ‘47 was the hardest year up until now. Jarosław springs to mind. Graadian guy, ex-con like Al. Missing one eye and a finger, too. Whittled whistles for the kids with his combat knife. He hasn’t thought of that man in awhile. 

He prefers to remember him in life as opposed to the way they found him.

It’ll be as hard as in ‘48, the first cookout this year.

Time goes on.

\----

Kim should know better than to indulge Harry when he says _One more stop._

Except dinner at the small Mesque diner was more than pleasant, and so was the time they spent in the booth just talking. Harry has that way about him, and apparently has been reading about the history of aerostatics for the exact purpose of pulling small talk out of thin air. It’s impossible not to appreciate the effort.

Despite his warranted skepticism and his better judgement he follows Harry across the roundabout, past the Whirling — where he can make out the Hardies drinking in the Union box — and past the bookstore. 

He entertains the idea Harry wants to gaze on his masterwork, the invective _FUCK THE POLICE_ painted in huge red letters on the alley wall. It’s probably no longer a fire hazard. The mazut has probably evaporated, only the paint remaining.

Other suspicions rise to his attention as they cross the rickety bridge uncertainly suspending them above the water of the bay.

"You’re paying a surprise visit to Cuno?" he deadpans.

It would make more sense to look for the little gremlin in his Night City, away from his father.

"That’s not what I had in mind," Harry admits unabashedly.

"Officer, we aren’t…"

Kim leaves the implication hanging in the air as Harry digs his key ring out of his trousers pocket, thumbing through for key to Capeside Apartments and confirming Kim’s suspicions.

There’s one other person they know there.

"I just wanna see if he’s in."

Kim grasps the ‘who’ but not the ‘why’. A visit seems improprietous, to put it as mildly as possible.

"He was in diapers twenty years ago. He has nothing to do with the investigation."

Harry turns a look of understanding on him when Kim had expected guilt or apology.

"You’re right. Just give me this one?"

"Fine."

It’s not as if he’s done a poor job, today. Give or take a moment or two of obvious mental fatigue and the occasional discomforted motion of the shoulder struck with an anti-light-vehicle weapon, he’s focused on the case with his usual single-minded vigor.

They let themselves into the apartment building and take the stairs to the courtyard balcony, climbing the outdoor flight to Apartment 28.

Harry takes a minute to compose himself, tugging on his coat and running a hand through his hair. A hint of a smile touches the corner of Kim’s lip. It’s touching, the way Harry wants to be a gentleman for this person. 

Kim admits the youth makes a striking impression.

Harry leans a hand against the far side of the doorframe, rapping his knuckles on the heavy metal security door.

For a moment Kim can hope no one will answer and they’ll be able to turn in. It’s a Friday night. With any luck the beautiful young man is already at a party somewhere far away from here, commingling with other fey youths as catlike and languorous as himself.

No such luck. The door swings open to reveal the young Kedran, slender cheekbones and modern haircut, a patterned silk shirt hanging open to exhibit his bare chest and intricate golden earrings with small white pearls dangling from his ears like little chandeliers.

A moment of suspicion and surprise pass fleetingly across his features before his amaretto colored eyes take up their sparkle and his lips a modest smile.

"Gendarmes, how unexpected."

"This isn’t police business," Harry assures, low voice polite. "I just wanted to stop by and thank you."

"Thank me for what, gendarme?"

Kim recognizes the young man’s coy and fawning look as born from years of self preservation in the face of the law. 

Harry straightens up off the doorframe, smoothing his tie out over his broad chest, his own eyes as bright and as youthful as the young man in front of him in the profile he cuts before Kim.

"You were right. I _have_ been homo-sexual in the past, it all _was_ repressed. I know I’m a bi-sexual, now."

A genuine smile breaks across the young man’s face as the pieces fall together.

"Beautiful!" he says. "Absolutely beautiful."

Harry puffs up with the praise, eyes irresistibly flickering between the young man’s chest and his face. 

The scent of cologne drifts from the youth’s lean body.

Kim understands, now, too. All these years, and he still remembers the first boy who drew his attention in his youth. Catching himself staring at Louis de la Croix in class, in the cafeteria, while the other young teen roughhoused with his friends. He still remembers details like Louis’ shirt riding up his abdomen, the arresting flash of skin. 

Those moments had been more exciting for the fact his excitement couldn’t be explained.

"If you hadn't explained it to me, who knows, it might have taken me years." Harry goes on. "So, thank you."

There’s a finality to it. As much as Harry revels in the youth’s presence, Kim is relieved to discover he didn’t bring them here to perform some ridiculous stunt.

The young man exhales flattered contentment. His emboldened smile lingers on his lips. After a moment’s pause, he makes a decision.

"Gendarmes, why don’t you come inside?" he asks, glancing behind himself to assess the state of his room. Satisfied, he looks attentively to Harry. "I want to hear more about your bi-sexual metamorphosis."

Now he’s ushering Harry into the apartment, the big man consenting eagerly. Kim breathes in, a knife’s edge of cool air slicing down his throat, an unpleasant sensation.

The young man waits, still holding the door open, his predatory eyes drifting over Kim for the first time, ignoring the jacket and the flare of his jodhpurs, gaze excavating the most exposed pieces of him with a connoisseur’s gaze.

The amused smile he offers Kim isn’t at all seductive, concealing laughter at the shared joke of putting on a compulsory performance for the sexually uninitiated. He must be a keen observer, to have been reading Kim’s fleeting cues, now and perhaps last month, as well.

Kim would normally reciprocate his fraternity.

The stress of this sudden development on top of that of his thoroughly terrible day have tempered his capacity for entertainment. 

"I’m not leaving you in the cold. Come inside," the youth says in a coaxing voice perfected on clients — ‘friends’.

Kim reluctantly consents. The absurdity of spending an unknown amount of time loitering outside a young man’s apartment with full knowledge the locals, and Union, will take an interest would be too much. 

The apartment is much the same as two months ago, in a state of disarray with the cloying smell of men’s cologne dense in the air, except the renovation is complete. No paint cans occupy the floor.

"Wine?" the young man offers. "A friend gifted me a fabulous vintage."

"No thanks, I don’t drink, anymore," Harry says. Knowing the temptation remains, Kim appreciates the assurance in his voice. 

Harry looks to him.

"I meant it earlier. I don’t mind if you do," he says. "We’re off the clock."

There’s enduring this diversion with a glass of fine wine, and simply enduring it. Kim easily has the willpower but not the motivation for the latter. 

Taking wine as a guest isn’t the same as being plied away from a case with beer. He’ll have walked it off before they reach the Kineema.

"Yes, please," he says, perfunctorily polite.

"My pleasure," the young man purrs, doting. He returns his attention to Harry. "I’ll put a kettle on."

He invites them into his kitchen with a careless gesture of his hand and come-hither eyes.

The kitchen is a mess, dishes and take-out containers scattered everywhere. There’s a chalkboard on the wall with notes of times, places and names and more notes on paper squares stuck to the refrigerator. The youth is untroubled by the fray.

"Have a seat if you like," he offers, while uncorking the wine bottle and pouring Kim a generous amount of ruby liquid in a broad-bowled glass.

He passes the fluted stemware to Kim and Kim chooses to sit in the chair adjacent to the wall. With the table tucked into the corner, the other chair is in front of the counter. Harry declines to sit, assuming a comfortable pose by the door to give the young man space to bustle around his kitchen in pursuit of preparing tea, Harry’s eyes following him with avid interest.

The hot plate on the counter is powered by a small, rusty old generator beneath it, its fuel can left under the stool in the corner. The generator grumbles awake and the young man sets his kettle on its electric heating coils.

The youth turns to Harry, hand curled in the air in anticipation, as if he could pluck Harry’s story from him.

"Now, tell me everything, _especially_ the intimate parts," he teases.

Harry draws himself up, as composed as Kim has ever seen him besides his obvious excitement over his present company. He almost looks dashing.

"I didn’t understand at first, you know, because I’d had a fiancée who was a woman. I still thought, maybe I’m a homo-sexual, but I thought maybe you had to be one or the other. 

"I didn’t get what you meant when you said I was already in the movement or I’d never be a part of it, yet. But then I got my hands on some Synnöve Tjäder…"

"Synnöve Tjäder? What a stroke of luck. Her theory of natal orientation was absolutely essential to our understanding of the homo-sexual impulse. You do of course understand that before that we were considered _diseased_ , psychologically or otherwise."

"You’ve read up on this?"

"Gendarme, I’m _almost_ offended. Despite the impression you may have gotten, I really am putting myself through school. But I admit much of my present education comes from free lectures and library study."

"That’s great, though. I’m glad for you. So, have you read Babič?"

"Naturally."

Kim’s gaze falls to rest on his wine glass. He lifts it to slowly sip.

He’s not unfamiliar with this theory, or these authors, as Harry and his young friend launch into animated discussion — shortly, over hot tea — but he isn’t a party to this conversation. It passes over him like so much noise as he sits forgotten.

They’re standing too close to be casual, their eyes too bright. Harry’s fixated on the young man like he’s never fixated on Kim, as many enthusiastic conversations as he’s held with him. Harry’s eyes drop compulsively to the young man’s bare chest so that he has to regain eye contact again and again. The youth is nothing but delighted, exulting in his own influence, subtly showing off different angles, even tracing his fingertips across his own skin, joyfully shameless.

The first time Kim had seen Harry grow excited in this young man’s company it had been touching, harmless — hilarious, really. There was a broken down, bewildered, and depressed alcoholic finding unexpected, sudden respite in the beauty of another man. The fact he fell all over himself over him charmed Kim.

Tonight, nothing about their suddenly-mutual attraction entertains Kim, anymore. 

He knows where the young man is coming from. Harry’s harmless, charismatic enthusiasm flatters. Kim has effortlessly lost hours in conversation, face to face and over the phone, too, with Harry periodically pushing coins into the hungry slot. He’s so authentic it feels utterly safe to be open.

Harry isn’t harmless or safe by nature. Kim stood by as he made a stunning phone call to who Kim now infers was Dora Ingerlund. 

_"You're naked, aren't you?"_

He saw him beat his hand bloody against the public telephone, a burst spring of crimson dripping bright onto the sand beneath the weatherbeaten phone booth with its destroyed plastic dome while Harry shouted in the wind.

_"You want my MONEY?! You want more money now, huh? YOU WANT FUCKING MONEY?!!!?"_

He could only rebuke the man and martial him to return to work, but he’s made a mental bookmark of each similar outburst he’s witnessed, and of those in the assessments the 41st gave him to review. It informs his perception of Harry at the same time he chooses to see it as no more than a potential to anticipate and manage.

 _This_ is harmless, though. It’s more than that. It’s healthy. It’s the literal opposite of Harry’s potential for dark and obsessive brooding or explosive temper.

Kim shouldn’t hate it. But he’s thinking about Titus and the fact that whatever relationship the man had called him looking for is off the table in any form he might have imagined, whatever that same man meant but declined to say while looming over him indecisive in the street today.

He’s thinking about Harry, and the rush of seeing him like this, aroused and engaged, and how he himself wants to be the subject of his full, desire-charged attention. 

He can’t have these men, but this young man has Harry, right now. In total. 

Give them time alone and he’d draw Harry into his bed, fold him into his arms, and let him thrust out an orgasm lying heavy on top of him. 

Kim will never be young and alluring again. After spending so long overlooked for his perceived youthfulness he doesn’t regret that, but for this sliver of time he resents _this_ young man for embodying those things. 

What does it matter? Harry, often so perceptive, is right now completely absorbed.

Kim’s glass of wine is empty. The mugs of tea have been set aside, and the interlocutors are gravitating closer still.

The young man’s bright laughter fills the kitchen and he lays a hand on Harry’s forearm, slender fingers in dense hair.

"I can’t tell you how flattering it is to be someone’s bi-sexual awakening."

That’s it.

Kim has had more than enough. It might be less vexing if he was seated anywhere besides eye level with the distended bulge behind Harry’s fly.

"We should be leaving if we want any sleep. We have work again in the morning," he interjects cooly.

Retroactive justifications for his interruption pour into his mind. Several are compelling, which makes it difficult to chastise himself for acting so jealously.

"Khm. Yeah, I guess that’s right," Harry says, casting a glance at Kim with a perplexed expression that betrays he hasn’t thought once about leaving him sitting there alone beside them. He hasn’t thought about Kim at all. He returns his eyes to his conversation partner. "Sorry. He’s right, we should be going. But this was great. It’s been great talking to you."

"If I had suspected you were such good company I would have had you back sooner," the slinky thing in the open shirt coos, fingers trailing along Harry’s thick forearm before he steps back to give Kim room to rise and join his partner.

"Thank you for the wine. It was excellent," Kim says, disinterested in the playfully knowing look the young man casts him.

"You were great— The tea was great," Harry says enthusiastically. 

"Oh, gendarme, it was nothing," the young man says as he guides them toward the door. 

Standing on the balcony, Kim looks back to see him gazing at Harry with an expression both delighted and wistful with a sharp edge of hunger. The boy is a hunter, Kim thinks, a loner and a survivor, and still not immune to Harry’s genuine rapture.

"Both of you have a wonderful evening," the young man says with feral, feline eyes for only one of them, raking his gaze over Harry again before imparting an impish parting smile.

It gives Harry the leisure to take his own last, longing look. Then the door has been shut, and it’s the two of them, Harry and Kim, standing together in the dark of night in the grimy reality of Martinaise.

Kim can feel Harry’s attention dogging him from behind as they make their way toward the stairs, but he refuses to address him while they’re exposed in a place they can be heard through the doors.

He only stops to address him when they’re in the stairwell, its walls marked up with a chaotic explosion of graffiti.

He doesn’t hesitate to match eyes with Harry, maintaining his composure in the face of Harry’s plea.

"You can’t have sex with him, we’re on a case."

Hypocrisy lies in wait in the silence between them, begging to be articulated.

Kim waits for Harry to speak, refusing to behave defensively over a very different set of circumstances.

Harry’s eyes narrow perceptibly.

"I can’t have sex with _him_ , but you had sex with Titus in the middle of an investigation."

Harry’s rumbling voice has a harder edge than Kim is accustomed to hearing.

"I couldn’t leave the hostel," he says peaceably.

There something else he doesn’t say which he believes to be apparent, that he had just experienced a staggering situation. Harry doesn’t know how close his fallen, bleeding body took Kim, in memory, to Dom’s death, and Kim doesn’t care to reveal it. Surviving a massacre was trauma enough for anyone by itself.

The stony resistance in Harry gives way to acknowledgement of that reality. He gestures expansively back up the stairs toward everything he’s leaving behind, pathetic and dependent, again.

"This is unfair, Kim. I may never have another chance to have sex in my life. Have you _seen_ me?"

Kim can’t acknowledge that yes, he has seen him, and hasn’t seen half as much of him as he’d like.

"Don’t be dramatic. He’s half your age," he says, instead.

Harry scrunches his nose.

"I think that’s his thing."

Kim can’t argue that. The svelte thing in Apartment 28 is in that phase where other sleek young things won’t do. He wants dominance and experience. While Kim questions if Harry has the desired performance in him, he can’t rule it out. He’s seen old aptitudes unconsciously pour back into Harry, before. He saw a touch of his aggression only now.

If he can’t argue that, he can argue something else.

"How seriously are people going to take us if we spend as much time philandering as we do solving crimes?"

Adding gravity to the situation is his own behavior, but he was never thinking _Let me make sure Harry can’t have sex in Martinaise_. 

Even if Kim hadn’t pursued Titus, an RCM officer ending a day’s work sleeping with a rent boy barely in his twenties would be terrible optics.

The last of Harry’s aspirations crumble. His shoulders slump and Kim, knowing offering an extended apology would, at this moment, be nothing more than rubbing it in, lets his expression do the apologizing before turning away to lead their exit from the building.

It’s uncustomary for Harry to follow in his footsteps, a wrong pervading the otherwise pleasant small town evening atmosphere.

The footfalls behind him stop. Concern leaps in Kim’s chest and he turns to see Harry half in shadow beneath the streetlights, mouth a grimace of distaste.

The man exhales audibly, as faint as the sound is over the water.

"I would have had a panic attack the minute you left us alone."

Kim doesn’t pretend to be unaffected, sympathetic to the honesty of the confession.

"You’ll get there, Harry," he assures.

It seems cruel to withhold love from this man, when Kim feels it pounding in his chest. In a fantasy world, wrapping his arms around Harry’s neck and rocking onto his toes to close the centimeters between them would be a shared joy that empowers Harry to forget the worst of his suffering.

His stomach quivers with how close he is to just that. Then, the impulse passes, leaving regret in its wake.

He bolsters his reassuring smile that much more, says _Come on_ , and turns away from him for both their sakes.

He’s thinking of the memory that just rose to the surface in the young man’s apartment, the pay phone booth rattled by the slam of Harry’s fist, the swollen hand and the blood.

He’s thinking of Harry, drunk, and the loaded gun, and the next morning’s confession, and how for several days it was too much for him to cope with. 

If he completely sets aside his concerns about their respective positions in the RCM — which otherwise remain very real — is he prepared to be the subject of Harry’s fixation? What are the consequences if it overwhelms him? Who does he turn to when he keeps no friends, either, and his first line coping mechanism, seeking out other men, is out of the question in a committed relationship?

"Kim, you alright?" Harry says from behind him as the reach the Kineema, its sloped shape like a jaguar in the night. "Sorry I left you hanging in there. I got a little caught up."

Obviously, Kim is carrying tension in his posture.

"I’m fine, Harry. It was a long day."

"You still thinking about Arnaud, or is it Titus?"

Although it wasn’t, being reminded how completely their day wrecked everything to do with the latter makes it easy to switch his attention.

"It isn’t really your business," he says without becoming defensive. He doesn’t need Harry making that his business, but he needs him off the trail.

"Titus still seems pretty into you," Harry says with a grin.

"I don’t think that’s remotely relevant after what we learned today," Kim says, clipped, while knowing Harry’s only easing his way under his skin. Any real irritation is for Titus.

Better to just indulge Harry.

Unruffled, he turns to his partner.

"If attraction was enough to sustain adult relationships I’d be married several times over. To six or seven men. But here I am, exactly as you see me."

He nonchalantly gestures down his person.

Harry follows his hand without the rapture that accompanied his adventures down the youth’s body. 

He’s aware Harry is attracted to him, but it’s not with the uncontrollable enthusiasm he shows toward the rent boy. It shouldn’t sting. Right now, it does.

"Maybe this whole political situation will cool off," Harry suggests, raising his eyebrows as he raises his eyes.

"You’re the political expert."

Harry folds his girthy arms over his chest and takes a crack.

"—alright, so labor disputes have a way of becoming _more_ violent when you get something that even looks like a commune. It makes people start believing in revolution. It falls short of the classless Mazovian endgame, but what we have here _is_ an autonomous community forming a worker backed municipal government with a lot of talk about direct democracy and social welfare. We should expect an escalation. Actually, we’re part of the escalation right now. But the Union hasn’t lost yet."

Kim looks away into the night, scanning the landscape of shadows for the surveillance he knows is there but can’t see. He won’t alter his behavior on account of it. He has nothing to hide.

He refocuses on Harry.

"Yes, well, even if the Union comes out on top and has provided humanitarian treatment to their captives they’ll still be involved in the narcotics trade. I’ve rethought ignoring that, interpersonally."

Harry mulls it over.

"You know, they’re still involved in the narcotics trade for the right reasons."

Not a shocking argument, coming from Harry, who’s approved of the scheme to both Titus and Evrart. 

Harry’s motivations aren’t Kim’s.

"I’m sure there are other ways to liberate the working class," Kim says. "Let’s get on the road."

He wonders again about Pryce’s choice of officers to assign to this case as he lets Harry into the back of the Kineema.

Certainly they were overheard. If nothing else, there’s someone with a parabolic microphone out there in the dark funneling their conversation into its cone. 

The Union simply won’t find anything to use against them when Harry is as sympathetic to the Union as he can possibly be while still acknowledging the corruption at the top, Kim thinks as he climbs into the driver’s seat. 

Kim isn’t much less sympathetic. Although it could be Harry’s influence, he’s also seen the abject poverty of Martinaise and the stubborn independence of its people. He understands the means being employed however much he dislikes them.

Is it that they’re the least likely to be accused of Moralintern bias if they turn up a conviction against Edgar? Does Pryce trust Harry this much in Union matters — to walk the line without compromising the investigation — even with his past obliterated? 

It’s a puzzle to fix his attention on in place of the disorienting, irrational strength of his feelings for Harry and the unwanted critical eye he’s turned on Titus.

\----

The bug sweep is finished. Titus broke out the beer. He sits at the table with Ingolf in their habitual positions at each end.

Typically reserved but sharp-eyed, the blonde man seems subdued. ‘Brooding’ could be the word. Looks like a guy with a lot on his mind.

"I interviewed him, myself. He seemed as confused as anyone I’ve met over how those documents ended up on him." Ingolf pauses. Here it comes, whatever _it_ is. "He was so frightened. I hope it didn’t influence my judgement. He could be frightened and still on the take."

Titus concedes with a nod. 

"I say we call it. It’s obvious he’s clean. Let’s get him out of there while his wife still has good things to say about us. I could make him piss himself, but what for? I trust you."

The Vaasan regards him across the table.

"Do you?"

Titus just smiles, affable.

"Not one hundred percent, at this point. You’re smart enough to know that." He grimaces at the fact Ingolf or someone under him could be working against them. That’s starting to look likely. "I don’t like we can’t trace the document drop _or_ the phone call. Feels like they know a little too much about us."

It’s his companion’s turn to smile. It doesn’t look like pretense. There’s no reprimand in this meeting, instead it’s their typical, more relaxed conversation.

"You’re the one in the street promising to do favors for RCM officers," he ribs with harmless familiarity, not at all accusative but smugly sipping his beer.

Titus jabs his finger down the table at him.

"I don’t appreciate that. You _know_ that bastard blew me off night before last. No way you don’t have the transcript. You go down this road you’re gonna hear me blow off some steam."

He looks at his own beer, then chugs a mouthful.

He’s not angry. Doesn’t wanna think about it, but isn’t angry.

Then again, hell, he _could_ use Ingolf like one of those Mesque religionists that hear your confessions like Alain goes to. He wouldn’t be telling the guy much he doesn’t already know.

Ingolf chuckles. 

"I’d need more beer for that and, unfortunately, I still need to secure the release of our falsely accused prisoner."

There’s a small, brief hesitation before _prisoner_. A troubled look that passes over the Vaasan’s face and leaves it lean on cheer.

"You’re kind of a pussy, Ingolf," Titus says, scratching his stubble, squinting down the table. "You could be a pussy and still on the take."

Ingolf turns his sweating beer on the wooden surface, watching the bottle roll under his fingertips.

He stops. He looks up.

"I knew the information I used to give you led to people’s deaths. _Gruesome_ deaths. But it seemed abstract. Does that make sense?" A reluctant sigh. The guy doesn’t _like_ being a pussy. "I never sat across a table from a besmertie. I didn’t see the fear. Even though I know they were people, it isn’t the same." He looks pinched. "You’re not a cruel man. You used to… How did you…"

"What, how did I off them in cold blood?" A nod from Ingolf. Titus weighs that. "I turn it off. I’m not looking at a person. I’m already looking at a stiff." He shrugs his big shoulders. "Don’t like it, but you don’t have to be some kind of psychopath to ice somebody." Adds on second thought: "Bet it helps."

Whatever’s coming out of the blonde’s mouth next, it takes more beer to get him there. Titus lets the guy work it out.

"Marie-Helene doesn’t know I’m in a mob."

Oh. Alright, then.

Titus can see how that one’s a problem. Ingolf doesn’t seem real close to anybody. Titus has to put on an unflinching face for his men, but up until now he always had Glen. Glen could punch his shoulder, cajole, tell him he looked cool as fuck blowing some guy’s brains out. 

Glen wasn’t a psychopath, he wouldn’t say that about him, but he had a lot of violent fantasies. He only talked about them hushed, and when the two of them were alone. They scared him. But fact was he still liked the violence. No getting around it. And he helped Titus hack it.

Doesn’t mean Titus hasn’t been in Ingolf’s exact situation. He had Bea. Dark hair, dark eyes, curves and flirty smiles, gorgeous laugh, wrapped up in his arms in the dark in their apartment while he whispered his affection in her ear. They were a thing for five years. He thought it’d be a lot longer. He thought he’d wife her up, like Tibbs did his girl. Started thinking about kids.

He had a whole lot of ideas that all went to shit because he chose to put a stopper on the local gang banging, on the dead teens and husbands and the needles with diamorphine residue lying in the gutters.

The breakup, maybe that was partly on account of the way she found out about all of it. The knife. The hospital. All the blood. 

She didn’t like what she heard after that, either.

"Been there," is all he says. There is a difference here, though. Bea was in the thick of it in Martinaise. "My advice? Don’t overthink it. She’s fine, man. She’s in Le Jardin. Besides, this isn’t ‘46, ‘47. There’s no mass executions on the table."

That’s something his mind shunts away from. Loading up that cargo crate, one lifeless body after another, special delivery for Madre loaded up on a lorry and shipped down to Villalobos. Alain and Jarosław’s idea. Taste of their own medicine.

He knows he did it. There’s images, snapshots of extreme violence, scorched into his mind. He couldn’t say how. 

They finish their beer, each in their own thoughts, the silence weighty but companionable. 

"I know I’m not a union man, but Wild Pines. What they’re doing." That passion and tension that rarely rises into the Vaasan’s voice mounts. "In Vaasa, this would have been unimaginable. Mercenaries with automatics in the streets. Sabotage. The government would come down on them. La communauté internationale might as well be _bragging_ they never intend to allow Revachol self determination."

If there’s one thing that colors him toward Ingolf’s honesty, it’s him still getting wound up when he gets political. That’s been the same the whole half-decade and change he’s been getting paid to lurk shady around the harbor.

"Oughta write them a worded letter," Titus says.

Ingolf’s eyes light up and his shoulders shake in a silent chuckle. 

"A worded letter…" Smiling, he glances away, pushing a hand through his hair. His eyes flicker back to Titus. "You’re right," he says. "I’m a ‘pussy’. But I think your methods cut to the point."

Titus looks past Ingolf, into the dark, realizing something.

"Oughta get that guy back to his family before midnight, huh?"

Ingolf immediately sobers, becoming preoccupied with his thoughts.

"Yes. That’s the next order of business." 

His chair scrapes across the tile floor. They both get up, and Titus sees him out.

This is good, Titus is left thinking. This one’s a win. It’s not great having too many dockers locked up in that old house.

\----

Harry lies in the black of his apartment, the curtains drawn, stripped down to his briefs in his double bed with its old, lumpy mattress. A pair of flat pillows of indeterminate age rest beneath his head. The stuffing in his stained comforter is distributed more unevenly than the padding of the mattress. His left shoulder aches from days of activity, but the persistent dull pain is beginning to taper off.

His mind circles the young man he spent the evening with. The first time he saw him, poised with his cigarette on the balcony overlooking the crime scene, his heart stuttered with excitement. Considering the cardiac arrhythmia Harry had been experiencing since he awoke, the young man’s chiseled looks and bare skin alone could have buried him.

The scent of him lingers — black currant, bourbon and bergamot. He spent an hour immersed in the lively amber of those eyes with that smooth, pale chest exposed to his gaze and those mobile hands emphasizing each candied word.

SUGGESTION: He wouldn’t have needed convincing to let you spend the night.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: That’s a twink that wants his hair pulled and his ass slapped.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: That namby pamby with his soft rich friends needs you to show him what a _man_ is.

AUTHORITY: He wanted you to seize control.

_That’s not what would have happened._

VOLITION: Don’t ruin the fantasy.

Harry throws back the covers and pushes his briefs down around his thighs and reaches to the desk beside his bed and retrieves the bottle there to press a pump of lube into his palm. 

He tries to ignore the fact that this almost never works, shutting his eyes to imagine the silk shirt falling off the young man’s shoulders, baring his lean upper body and tight, dark nipples. His hand moves on his cock. He imagines latching his lips to that throat and the youth’s pleading _Gendarme_. 

He can almost feel the heat of his body under his palms. A part of him remembers this. Sex. 

He’d kiss his way down his body, lick the taste of skin off him. He’d open the fly of his jeans.

INTERFACING: Something thick and hot gliding past your lips, cradled by your tongue.

PERCEPTION (Touch): Suddenly, you can feel it.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You did some time in the homosexual underground, didn’t you, kinky boy?

LOGIC: It’s indeterminate whether any of that time was in the past six years, but with your proclivity for extreme behavior there’s no reason to assume you lived a discreet youth.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Keep reaching. There’s some great stuff packed away in here. I just know it.

He imagines the gasps the young man would make. The way his youthful, slender body would arch up from the bed. 

He’d be flushed. Sweating. It’s a good image. 

EMPATHY: He wants a mature man to make him feel secure. Physically, not just financially.

SAVOIR FAIRE: He’d never turn down ‘financially’.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: We’re not here to psychoanalyze him we’re here to _fuck_ him.

Harry’s getting hard now, dormant hormones starting to overcome the inertia of depression and withdrawal.

He tries to imagine what comes next. The cock lying against the young man’s stomach. The open legs. The anus, puckered, which he can picture in a carnal flash while heat streaks through his cock.

A violent sensation in his stomach. 

He feels ill.

PAIN THRESHOLD: You don’t deserve him.

INLAND EMPIRE: The ugliness that consumes you would corrupt something that beautiful, venomous black sludge in his veins.

Pleasure decomposes into its dark opposite.

His chest gapes empty, his mind parched, dessicated. He breathes through a soup of grey misery. His limbs weigh heavy.

His hand pulls uselessly at his semi-erect cock, a soft give to the organ under his hand.

His arm rests against the swell of his belly. He despondently acknowledges the hand he’s been dealt, a fat stomach and soft tits, big nipples and a modest dick. Body hair like an ape. A face bloated from drinking with skin creased from smoking. 

He knows, factually, that a beautiful young man wanted him in his bed tonight. His mind fails to grasp why. Alone in his room it feels like a cruel prank, one more hope dashed. 

He lets the thoughts of self-annihilation come and pass.

Heat aches through his cock at another, earlier image: Titus and Kim squaring off, tense, angry, and magnetic, ignoring him like he’d ignored Kim in the apartment, later, before Kim broke the tension.

He swallows through a throat suddenly thick and dry. His mind races with the hope that familiar voice that helps him clear his mind will speak up, but the image, the tension of that moment, drowns out everything else as he shuts his eyes. 

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Hush now…

He can imagine Kim’s body opening wide around Titus’ dick, imagine his own body opening, imagine pushing inside Kim, too — Kim pushing inside him. The idea of penetration — the body opening and the body swallowing — and the ghosts of long past sensations have him erect, finally. 

He’s filtering through ideas, trying to build a fantasy. 

An image of Kim at Land’s End, cheeks wind-bitten red, crouched and panting, lips parted, slender shoulders heaving with his breath. 

That’s what it looks like but it’s somebody else, somebody better than Harry, somebody who deserves Kim more and whose body Kim wants exhausting Kim. It’s Titus with his big body and kilometers of muscle and the strong hands Harry almost broke his hand on fist bumping.

It’s a good image. It’s all Harry sees, pornographic flashes of his friends’ naked bodies colliding together. Harry’s not thinking about himself, about coming, but he’s thinking about Kim coming, imagining ropes of semen coming from in in spurts, mouth open like he remembers and lean body shuddering and Titus must be thrusting, must be giving it to him how he asked to make him come like that.

Lying alone in his bed, his own semen a mess on his stomach, Harry heaves for air, damp skinned and radiating heat. 

He doesn’t let himself think, pulling tissues from the box on the desk and cleaning up the flattened swell of his abdomen, stomach spread wide when he’s lying on his back. It’s a sloppy clean up job at best, with the semen matted in his generous body hair.

_I’m fucked._

ENDURANCE: What’s ‘fucked’ is your sexual stamina. You’re a shadow of a man, bröther.

Harry can’t argue, throwing the tissues into the small steel wastebasket beside the bed and pulling his underwear back up to his hips, tucking his softening cock away.

He pulls the covers over himself.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: There’s no point in ruining the _second_ orgasm this month by overthinking this. Of course you couldn’t get off masturbating about yourself. You don’t fuck! These are people who _actually have sex_. What’s sexier than people having sex?

RHETORIC: It’s too late not to overthink this.

EMPATHY: Be kind to yourself. Other people have histories, diverse social groups, have seen films…

Harry thinks about the erotic magazines in the bottom drawer of his desk. They’ve had the exact same effect as the first fantasy he tried to muster tonight. They made him sad, made him sick.

HALF LIGHT: You’re nothing like real people.

CONCEPTUALIZATION: You’re taking normal male human behavior and wielding it as a source of self flagellation to further engorge your own self disgust.

 _But Kim would_ hate _somebody masturbating about him._

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Kim fucks but the dude is as emotionally repressed as you get. 

LOGIC: Don’t consider Kim the male norm solely because he’s your single good friend and only source of social and sexual validation.

ENCYCLOPEDIA: Your reading has more than sufficiently informed you that men fantasize about a variety of stimuli from strangers, to celebrities, to fictional characters, exes and friends.

Harry keeps his eyes stubbornly shut in the dark, fatigued enough from the brief sexual exertion to be placated toward slumber, the voices beginning to give way to images, again, the fragmented inception of a dream: Jamrock streets at night, passing traffic.

_I’m tired. Just let me sleep._

PAIN THRESHOLD: Will it be a restful sleep?

INLAND EMPIRE: You already see her ahead of you, on the crosswalk, small feet in golden sandals. You hear heels clicking on asphalt, the wheels of her travel bag. She’s going to the aerodrome. Hurry, hurry, Harry, and you can still catch her.

He promised the phasmid he’d let Dora go. Hasn’t he focused on work? (On Kim?) Doesn’t he pick up a book or force himself to ride it out when the mourning takes him?

And still, again and again, three times a week, the wreath crowing her white hair, the low cut silver dress exposing the delicate collarbones that buttress the holy sanctuary of her lungs, and her blue eyes, once flecked with green, growing colder and more pale each time they meet...


	9. Chapter 9

**Saturday, 24 April ‘51**

Titus runs. He hears shouts echoing off the mountainsides, the metal containers stacked high around him amplifying the fracas ahead.

This isn’t the sound that first got his attention. A steel moan wailed across Martinaise, then came a tightly packed series of enormous, shuddering crashes reverberating through the streets.

He didn’t need to be told what made that sound. There’s only one piece of metal in the harbor big enough. It could only be one of the cranes.

Although they sometimes travel the rails through the harbor, most of the Kvalsund cranes line the wharf where the aerostatics dock, the big airships hovering over the water, tethered by mooring lines to the concrete berths beneath them. The harbor’s cranes slide containers into the ships’ cargo bays where internal, overhead cranes take over, hoisting the cargo to disappear it into the belly of the ship.

It’s the wharf where the yelling is coming from. Titus can make out that much.

He’s not the only one trying to make the scene. Besides Maxime, Kilian and Eugene, who were with him, there’s other men and women whose first instinct is to hurry to assess the damage. This isn’t anybody’s first harbor accident, but the idea of a crane giving up on itself with men and women at work around it freezes the blood.

What they pull up on on the quay isn’t just a recovery operation. The collapsed remains of the container crane background a mob shoving and shouting.

“Kilian, get over there and see who’s hurt,” Titus barks as he sizes up the situation. 

Kilian’s seen the least action of any of them. There’s no reason to get him mixed up in a tussle. Somebody needs to make sure the situation beyond it is in hand.

The older Hardie jogs past the crowd to go assess the wreckage. All but one of the people who came along with them follow, the last man indecisive.

The situation in front of Titus comes into focus, quick. The crowd has their hands on a guy, and they’re fighting over what to do with him, hauling him back and forth between them while they all shout over each other.

He doesn’t need to discharge a weapon for this one, just wades in, roaring _Back down_ with the volume that comes naturally to him.

Maxime and Eugene, hanging back to keep an eye on the big picture — the one where one of them draws on somebody — can punctuate that with a bullet to the sky if they need to.

He doesn’t know whose side he’s on, but starts shoving the tussling parties apart, ragdolling a couple of the smaller men and ignoring the strikes landed against him in the fray.

As the numbers winnow down one man gets a good hold of the victim — who may also be a perp — dragging him back into a knot of allies sympathetic to detaining him.

The important thing, for now, is people are cooling off.

“The hell is going on?” Titus asks, loud enough for the whole crowd, but he’s fixed on the pack with the detainee.

“They were gonna kill him!” a docker claims from behind him.

Whether or not that’s an exaggeration isn’t important right now.

He keeps the volume up, taking up space that way, bigger than life.

“What’d he do?”

“He fucking sabotaged the crane! That’s what he did!” a woman from what he’s calling the lynch mob barks back.

There would have been a time he knew all the players here, but he'd only been working the docks from time to time before the strike and still hasn't gotten back to work since the strike broke. He has a rough outline of some of them and a better outline of a couple more.

“And how do you know that?” he asks, singling out the woman first, then letting his eyes search her friends, ignoring their captive. 

“He’s been out here doing maintenance,” a sun beaten longshoremen with dark freckles snaps back.

Titus looks close at him.

“You’re telling me a crane that just got a maintenance call broke up? Like maybe there’d already been something wrong with it?” He glances around the crowd, at the lynch mob and their opponents, letting his point sink in.

People from both parties see the sense in that, easing the tension.

He dials back his own aggression.

“I need you to hand him over so we can make this a fair trial. He couldn’t take down a whole Kvalsund in one day,” he says. He spares a glance for the frightened man they’ve got a hold of on his knees on the concrete, assessing him with the right amount of drama. “On the other hand, seems like he would’ve noticed a problem _this_ big.”

If he’s learned anything it’s that it’s hard to say what a saboteur looks like. He doesn’t trust this guy any more than they do. These cranes don’t just break up.

He can’t let them rough him up, or, god help them, lynch him, but he’s glad they detained him.

“I took care of an electrical malfunction! That was it!” the guy on his knees pleads in his own defense.

None of them are here to hear him out, not while tensions are hot.

The woman from before takes a step forward, folding her arms.

“How do we even know we can trust you? Splitting the fucking bacon.”

Titus doesn’t even feel a sting, just laughs, short and sharp. He holds his hands up in the classic _caught me_ gesture, switching it up to joking as a friend.

“Don’t be a fucking idiot. You think after ten years of letting besmerties try to use me for target practice I’d give up on this town when we’re winning?” He brushes his hands off on his sweats. “Cop and I didn’t know things would go to shit like this. My mistake. That’s over.” And it is, isn’t it? Bites, but sure looks like it has to be. “Now, come on.”

Their body language slowly changes, each one of the lynch mob cautiously agreeing as a part of the group, relaxing just enough to cue they’ll give up their prisoner.

Titus nods to Maxime, who crosses the concrete to apprehend the guy, tugging his arms behind his back, digging cuffs out of his jeans’ back pocket and slapping them on.

They’ve taken up that kind of thing, now. Carrying cuffs on them.

Danger passed, he has time to get a good look at what’s going on. The jib collapsed, along with the container being lifted. The whole assemblage came crashing down, and that, it's obvious to anybody, can’t just happen with a sturdy fixed-jib crane like this one. Now that Titus has a second to sort it, no way a job like this could be pulled off even just this week. There’s too many supports, all of them bolted metal.

More likely, the thing got fucked up during inspection when the harbor woke up from months of inactivity. Somebody applied some kind of corrosive to it, maybe? he thinks.

Whatever happened, it took awhile for the rest of the supports to get beaten down by the extra weight they were bearing. The whole thing collapsing is probably way beyond the saboteur’s best case scenario.

The aerostatic they were loading is still floating, but its loading dock is wrecked from the part of jib extended over it going down, too.

And Kilian stands on the crane’s platform, shaking his head.

At least the operator and the rigger, if nobody else, are dead, then.

And they’re gonna have to shut operations down harbor wide to check the other cranes.

He gestures for Kilian to come back over.

He’s got an audience, but that’s fine. In fact, he wants them to stick around.

“Max, I need you to take this guy to detention. I’ve got a feeling we’re about to have to deal with the police.” He points to one of the rowdier faction. “You, go with him. I need the rest of my guys here.”

The longshoreman nods and steps out of the crowd. He and Maxime take off.

That should keep everybody on the same page. They need to be. This is a strength in numbers situation.

It plays out how he figured. Somebody called an ambulance for one of the guys on the aerostatic who fell to the wharf. (Titus doesn’t go see it but it sounds bad.)

An ambulance comes with pigs sniffing after them because the fuckers like to stick their noses in anything that might give them a chance to slap a fine on somebody or wave their guns around.

In this case they draw a pair of sergeants. Those are the worst. Just enough authority to think they’re hot shit. The sergeants have a couple patrol officers with them, but he’s not worried about those.

He greets them with arms crossed and a posse of dockers behind him.

He takes a minute to look them over, letting his size speak for him. They don’t look like much, clustered close together — torn between trying to assert their authority and clearly being outmanned. They sure weren’t prepared for the welcome they’re getting.

He grins real friendly.

“Sorry you boys came all the way out here, but we’ve got this situation under control.”

“Do we have time for this? There’s people hurt,” a sergeant says.

“Oh, I’m sorry. You’re the medics? I got confused on account of those patches on your uniforms. Looks to me like you’re cops. They look like medics to you, Eugene?”

“Looks like they came straight from the pig pen, boss.”

“And you know what he means. We need to take statements here and determine if this is a crime scene,” says the first guy’s partner.

“I’ll spare you the trouble,” Titus says. “It’s a crime scene. It’s sabotage.”

“Then it’s even more important we—“

“Let me spell it out. I’m not gonna let a pack of Moralintern scrubs compromise _my_ crime scene. We already know your _owner’s_ verdict: Harbor accident, no way Wild Pines was involved. It’d be better for you boys to leave this to honest law enforcement officials.”

Recognition dawns on the first sergeant’s bullish face.

“You’re Titus Hardie out of Martinaise.”

Titus laughs.

“If you already know how things work, why are you trying to throw your weight around? Here’s how it happens: I’m gonna let you boys take a look, take some statements, take some pictures. With me and my boys, and officers from that aerostatic. That way we’re both happy, and the company can get a report straight from their own people. Sound fair?”

He isn’t asking them, he’s asking the other dockers.

The second sergeant shifts his weight from one foot to the other, eyes sliding to his partner, face rankled in distaste.

“We actually gotta take this from some townies?”

“I’ve heard about these guys. They’re animals. Captain said he threatened to ice Kitsuragi,” his partner says, gaze defiantly matched with Titus’.

Titus spreads his hands in a soothing gesture, still-friendly smile still spread across his lips as he turns to cajoling.

“Ladies. Nobody here’ll shoot you unless you ask us nice, but we’ll send you packing with bruises. If you’re not planning to do it my way, how about you go on and skedaddle back to your box at Terminal H?”

The men stand in dissatisfied silence, trading a few glances. It’s the same cautious way of coming to a group consensus he just witnessed with the lynch mob. He’s used to inspiring it, to just waiting for people to realize he’s not somebody they want to fight.

A sergeant nods to him.

“We’ll do it your way. Let’s just get it done.”

Titus looks to the woman among the dockers who’d spoken up to him, nodding his head toward the site of the accident. He both doesn’t want to be outnumbered by the pigs and he wants to keep the trust of his Union brothers and sisters.

She nods and steps forward from the crowd, going with them to the wreckage. 

Once they’ve found themselves some ship’s officers they break up into teams and start working the scene.

\----

He woke up with cramped, sore legs that protested as he flexed and relaxed them. The physical fatigue of keeping up with Harry’s relentless pace — power walking if not jogging — was matched only by the mental fatigue of yesterday’s emotionally taxing day.

Lying blind in bed, the world an indistinct smear of dim colors, Kim felt he might as well not have slept, his chest still heavy and mind still raw from the demands of emotion — rarely a significant aspect of his job.

He came to the RCM pre-equipped to witness tragedy. Tragedy waited everywhere in Faubourg. Friends, some close, died to crime, both as victims and perpetrators, or OD’d in clubs or their own bathrooms, died in crashes on the street racing scene or lost their lives to other risk taking behavior and their own hopeless desperation. 

Already inured, a line of work where he continued to watch young people fall victim to the same brutality cut away at some fundamental sympathy, so that even when an outcome is so horrible it demands an emotional response it rarely rises to the level of consciousness. 

He’ll end a bad day disquieted from violence and deception, but infrequently distressed.

His diminished sensitivity to life’s brutality is the kind of fact he sees no point in having an opinion on. It’s no longer more or less than a tool to conduct his work.

Navigating intimate needs for emotional reciprocity from others, like Titus, or from himself, toward Harry, do him more psychic damage than playing a role in another spate of violence. As a private flaw it’s nearly intolerable.

And then there’s the fact no matter how many times he experiences it, no matter how long ago he might otherwise have died to it the way a part of him has died to the violence, his pride won’t let him tolerate Revachol’s relentlessly creative racists.

He would have preferred to continue to lay in bed blind and sore and not re-engage with an external world of strife, but life didn’t afford him that kind of luxury. So, he put on his glasses and got out of bed, grunting at his complaining muscles. He ate and showered and dressed and took the bus to work and by the time he arrived his private unrest had largely sorted itself.

Harry seemed quiet when they rendezvoused. After days of interviews, perhaps still touched by the damage of the anti light vehicle weapon and certainly still suffering withdrawal, it didn’t surprise Kim at all. But their obligations refused to spare Harry, either, and Kim wouldn’t do him the disservice of overtly asking him to go through the production of airing his grievances when Harry would habitually offer them if he has the energy. 

They began the morning with coffee on top of the coffee they individually consumed at home and a review of the case so far, identifying if nothing else how totally futile trying to place Edgar on the island had shaped up to be. 

Kim gave Harry one unguarded look of inquiry in the station garage, Harry shook his head, and that was it on the matter. 

If a small part of Kim might have wanted that concern reciprocated then he shouldn’t have spent so much time asserting his more emotive inner workings are professionally off limits on duty and mostly off limits otherwise.

The Kineema rolls up to the black and white striped boom barrier separating the small fishing village on the coast of the Martinaise inlet from the grey asphalt road pocked with black patchwork beyond.

There’s no point in lifting the rusted boom. He’s not driving his Kineema over the tare-littered and even more rusty iron mesh that leads down to the cracked-cement public plaza of Illisible, nor any further. It’s not an off-road vehicle.

The morning finds the washer-woman Isobel Sadie sitting in her chair enjoying the morning sun on her broad, wrinkled face. 

“Who do we have this morning?” she asks them, their feet too heavy to be women’s but their gait too coordinated to be the local drunks’.

“Your tenant, and Lieutenant Kitsuragi,” Harry says warmly.

“You’re right on time. I think I heard Lilienne at the dock,” the old woman answers with equal fondness. “Why don’t you help her with the catch and we can all catch up together?”

Given her position as the village’s elder statesman, it’s less of a suggestion than it is a direction.

They pass under the colorful tarps of the small boardwalk and down onto the jetty. Lilienne takes their presence for granted, issuing orders, although Kim gently points out Harry has a tender shoulder such that he’s made responsible for moving the nets while Kim and Lilienne box the fish with ice and haul them to the boardwalk where they’ll be picked up by a local driver.

They rinse and hang the fishing nets. Kim learns the synthetic fiber has to be kept out of direct sunlight. 

The work done, they return to the plaza with Lilienne, considerably more damp.

The mother of three stands poised beside Isobel, dressed in belted khaki waders, white short sleeve shirt underneath showing off muscular arms Kim almost envies. What else did he imagine under her winter clothes when she spends her hours hauling nets?

“Seeing as you did me a good turn I imagine I can hold off sleeping, officers,” she says in her blunt Ubi accent. She takes up a smile. “What brings you back to our village? Looking for more ne’er-do-wells? Come to move in for good, maybe?”

“We are looking for someone,” Kim admits, “but they’ve been dead for some time.”

“Well, how long?” Lilienne asks, an expectant frown of concentration creasing her brow.

Harry grins, delivering the punchline:

“Since ‘31.”

Harry likes her, Kim knows, although not with the same ridiculous enthusiasm he has for the rent boy in Apartment 28. Kim has been asked to chaperone them on what passed for a date. He doesn’t feel the jealousy he felt last night, but that may be on account of Lilienne knowing what she wants and it not being Harry.

The fisherwoman is turning over this news. She looks to the aged Samaran beside her.

“As I was eighteen, then, and nothing but drinking with the girls, this might be your area, Isobel.”

The nearly blind woman nods amenably, gaze wandering sightlessly over their surroundings. Kim supposes he’s looking at himself years from now, when his eyes are beyond the aid of glasses.

“‘31 was a long time ago, but if I can help I will.” The woman’s creased face brightens. “You did right by Ruby. She was just here to fish, Tuesday.”

Kim imagines the young woman, now with stark purple hair, casting a line from the docks, a beer beside her. It’s a peaceful late spring day with good weather. Thoughts of La Puta Madre are far off memories.

There’s hope in that image, whatever else she’s tangled up in. 

She lived, thanks to Harry, and he meant what he said at the time — that he too would have chosen her life over the letter of the law if the pale latitude compressor hadn’t so totally disabled him.

“This may be a tough one. We’re looking for the victim of a shooting,” Harry tells Isobel.

“Mister Didier Arnaud in Martinaise told us that bodies that washed up here at that time were often buried without the involvement of the authorities,” Kim says.

“Which isn’t a problem,” Harry adds, for clarity. “We’re just thin on leads.”

Lilienne barks a harsh laugh.

“Lot of floaters turned up back in the thirties. And the twenties. The forties, too. Different people doing the shooting but always us left to deal with the bodies. And that besides the usual boating and swimming accidents. It was a veritable carnival here on the coast.”

Kim understands the cheer in her voice. She doesn’t find it funny at all. A profusion of death, seeing bodies in one miserable state after another, demands the mind defend itself. 

How many times has Kim cracked a joke at a crime scene? About the keen artistic vision behind a besmertie dismemberment, standing among scattered pieces of a once-living human being, perhaps.

Isobel sits nodding to herself, sorting through her own memories of death.

“Why don’t you describe them to me and I’ll see if I remember them?” she says.

Harry places his hands on his hips. Kim thinks about how far the man has come. Granted, the clothes Kim first met him in were disgusting, crusted with he only suspects what and stinking, but this far into their last investigation the man had pieced together some terrible outfit. He’d thrown his patrol cloak on over a black mesh tank top that displayed his hairy chest, still wearing his horrible, greasy tie. He had on red plastic shades and a black and white FALN pipo-hat. He’d found a thankfully ordinary pair of jeans, but to Kim’s great disappointment had stolen the boots right off Lely’s corpse while Kim was sleeping.

He had, of course, been outrageously high. He isn’t that, today, and while his fashion dates to The New, Kim appreciates the sober regularity he’s displayed this week.

“She was a tall woman. Big, too. A débardeuse,” Harry says. “She would have been wearing yellow. Based on her style in the photos, it probably would’ve been a business suit. She had a ‘chick-yellow’ bag to go with it, Barbara Muskova. It may have still been tangled with the corpse.”

“A bright yellow woman in a business skirt…” Isobel sits in silent reflection, then: “Yes. She did wash up here, officers. I remember because of the bag. There was talk over whether we could still sell it.”

For a preoccupied moment, Kim can’t help but try to calculate the odds the bag was still salvageable. It seems most likely that the community was being overly optimistic.

“Don’t look so scandalized, officer,” Lilienne says.

A grin touches Kim’s lips at the idea.

“I assure you I understand the financial windfall. It was the matter of extricating it from a floater. The skin sloughing off, and the way it would stick,” he parries smoothly. “I was only wondering how badly it would devalue the bag.”

The fisherwoman snorts in good humor. 

“Oh, aye. That’s always the trouble with the bloating and the decomposition. I’m not proud to say I’ve pawned a few things. Not ashamed, either. One ring I pawned, I can still feel the finger coming off.”

Harry blanches. 

“Not a lot scandalizes Kim but I’m not promising _I’ll_ hold up through this conversation.”

Kim restrains himself from laughter, remembering the man throwing up over and over again in front of the suspended, decaying corpse behind the Whirling. 

“A big baby, then, aren’t you, Officer Harry,” Lilienne teases.

It had been a strange scenario, come to think of it. 

Harry had reacted violently, at first, while Kim had only been worn down over time. But in the end, as if in a trance, Harry wrung open the dead man’s jaws and pushed his fingers through his soft palate, the slick noise nauseating. He removed the bullet from the brain with calm and purpose.

Kim wonders if that unevenness is to be expected from Harry’s rebirth into a mixed state of naivety and instinct, or if something stranger had been happening. He never would have entertained the possibility Harry has been guided by forces he can’t understand at the time.

He interrupts his own train of thought.

“Khm. We were speaking about the victim, however.”

Isobel squints in his direction, though unseeing.

“Yes. I’m sure they took her to the place we buried the bodies, but I’m afraid even if I had my eyes I couldn’t tell you where her grave is.”

Kim and Harry share a look in pause. Kim already knows they have a chance, the fact prickling the hairs of his arms.

“We’ve made it this far,” Harry says, gaze intense on his. “We might as well take a look. Maybe we’ll find a stone to turn up.”

A flutter of unease in Kim’s chest.

“Yes,” he says with uncharacteristic quiet. “Perhaps you can ask the wind.”

Lilienne looks between them as someone who has no idea what they’re talking about.

“Guess I’ll be showing you out to the graveyard, then. You’ll need shovels, I imagine.” 

They retrieve those from their storage and head inland beneath the midday sun. 

“Hope the kids have been doing alright,” Harry says, shovel resting against his good shoulder.

Lilienne looks wistful at the thought of her children, the corner of her mouth turned up and her tired eyes softened.

“What can you say about children? Always underfoot but they’re staying out of trouble. Haven’t taken up drinking since you last saw them, anyways.”

Harry nods along, thoughtful, himself. His expression brightens as he lands on his next subject.

“The weather’s turned, though. You’ve been back on the water.”

Kim remembers Lilienne speaking wistfully of returning to the sea. Not that he had been trying to overhear her conversation with Harry. Anything but, actually. However, his notes could only keep him so preoccupied.

“The fishing’s not as abundant as I might have hoped this season, but, aye, the weather’s been favorable,” she agrees. “And your health? Last I saw you you were coming apart.”

“Thirteen days sober,” Harry says with optimism.

Right now, every day sober is an achievement.

The woman with them smiles approvingly.

“Well, congratulations, Harry, though I may’ve meant how you were drenched in your own blood.”

“I know it looked bad, but it could’ve been a lot worse,” Harry says. “I’m not looking forward to digging up a grave, though.”

It isn’t a long walk up the road before they’re under the sparse canopy of pine trees. As a coastal pine forest, the tall, stringy trees are widely spaced, their shade dappling an underlying savanna dominated by grass.

This isn’t pristine nature. Trash intermittently litters the landscape. The spring showers have died off, and ash from the coal plants drifts down through the trees, clinging to the ground cover. The stinging smell of sulfur dioxide is faintly scentable without the ocean smell or dominating stench of toxic runoff that mutes it along the coast.

Kim understands the basic reason they’re moving inland, that the secreted graveyard must be far enough from the shore to be able to bury the bodies above the water table. It would be impossible to expect them to remain beneath the ground if buried in water at the shore.

“If you really want to dig up a grave, we can all take turns,” Lilienne is saying to Harry.

“I don’t want you to feel obligated, ma’am,” Kim says. 

He knows that she’s already spent hours fishing. It seems impolite to impose on her.

“If I can haul nets I can put my back behind a shovel, officer, don’t you mind.”

“Of course, ma’am. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise,” Kim course corrects, although it would take more than this to offend this woman.

“This one’s a gentleman,” Lilienne says to Harry. “You should take notes, if you’re still hoping to find a working class husband.”

Harry shakes his shaggy head.

“A husband would be a moonshot. I haven’t found a working class man for one date.”

This is healthy, Kim thinks. Having Harry out in the fresh air again, yes, and with someone age appropriate besides Kim himself to speak with? Even better. He wonders if Lilienne could be someone Harry might be able to spend time with, again, if he remains sober.

If that led to something more, it wouldn’t be Kim’s business.

Last night had been unfortunate. Even if Kim hadn’t interfered on selfish grounds, Harry’s behavior would still have been unbecoming in a way detrimental to the case. And, honestly, what are the chances Harry could form a healthy, lasting connection with someone as youthful as their acquaintance? The truth is despite all the woes that have no doubt been poured out to him in bed the young man is unlikely to have the experience to negotiate a friendship with someone as deeply wounded as Harry.

If Kim should, perhaps, take his own speculative advice and consider cultivating more friendships than his friendship with Harry, he isn’t as naturally gregarious. Besides, he only just failed to cement a friendship with Titus. He needs time to recoup from that much.

\----

Working a crime scene is something Titus enjoys, in theory. The theory part’s a good workout, bouncing ideas off his men, or in this case the docker, Anežka, who he took as his partner, two of the cops, and the ship’s first officer.

The dead longshoremen and crippled crewman, though, he’s not real enthused about that. Furious, more like it. Like he could slowly choke the life out of any one of those selfish, calculating millionaires and billionaires authorizing operational decisions at Wild Pines. The kind of people a bullet is too good for. He doesn’t love killing but he’d enjoy _that_ , anger pouring out through his tightening hands.

Not a good time to fantasize about revenge. Not useful, either. Not possible. He focuses on what he can do, climb over the collapsed and twisted steel, work out the evidence of sabotage, point to the corroded metal weak around the bolts, figure aloud how the saboteur got to them, work through the physics that led to the eventual total collapse out loud.

The sergeant and patrol officer with him aren’t dumb, and they’re not too obstinate. They’re not as diligent as Kim studiously filling his blue notebook, and they’re not as forthcoming as Harry, who did him the courtesy of laying out the facts for and against Ruby’s culpability even when they threw a narrative of her guilt into question, but if the Union is taking over policing the harbor — and, one step at a time, they are — he has to put up with pigs like these. For now.

He has to point a couple of times, bark _Write that down_ at the patrol officer, and walk over and take his little flip notepad and make a show of confirming he did a few times, too. There’s only one cute _Fuck this guy_ scribbled down in there and he smiles down on the officer so smug when he offers the thing back the guy flusters and ends up studying his scuffed shoes.

It’s a pleasure to be two meters tall. He bumps his head on too much shit, but it makes a lot of people feel little. Not just _short_ , but powerless.

The Coalition likes that feeling, too. Right here at Terminal B, as deep in home territory as it gets — the 57th way off on the other end of the harbor, across the Martinaise distributary of the river Esperance — Titus can look out across the bay and up to see the Coalition warship Archer looming at its edge. The great battleship-grey aerostatic casts a long shadow on the water. Twenty massive cannons bristle from each side ready to unload fifty shells a minute.

It won’t fire on the city for nothing. Revachol is too valuable for that. Just like he knows Wild Pines hasn’t sabotaged more than two, maybe three cranes. Wild Pines wants these big, expensive machines back. For these people, the Coalition and their co-conspirators, it’s all about margins. Acceptable losses.

But even as he bullies the Moralintern’s agents in Revachol, he knows it’s there. Just like his gaze bears down on its victims so he never has to lift a hand, the eyes looking down over Revachol itch at the back of his neck.

He sleeps, but those eyes never close. The Archer never lands. It refuels in the air, and it waits.

The ambulance has long cleared out. The bodies have been removed to the morgue. The interviews have been completed, and the remains of the crane have been worked over systematically. 

That’s the end of the RCM’s involvement. The officers are escorted back to their vehicle and seen off over the bridge.

Titus spends a little longer talking with the captain of the aerostatic, who went with the interview team, and first officer. Lizzy’s here with him, now, and for the moment his goal in life isn’t to make the young lawyer’s harder. He hates when Evrart uses her to ‘handle’ him — mostly because she doesn’t _get_ what it takes to lead a militia and has a habit of undermining his authority in front of his men — but right now they’re on the same page.

They want the airmen to feel heard, and want them to understand this disregard for the lives of laborers, including their crew, is a reason there’s no going back to doing business with Wild Pines. They promise them the now-quiet harbor, machines silent and all hands on deck for a full inspection of their equipment, will make their company their top priority when the ship they’ve diverted to handle this pickup arrives harborside. 

Lizzy does the guaranteeing, and Titus lubricates the conversation with affability. She’s a little short on that, stoic with professionalism.

After that, Titus gets together with Eugene and Kilian to talk evidence and timelines and possible suspects. The guy they arrested isn’t a likely one. Nobody saw him work on anything but wiring. He lets Anežka listen in, because they need popular opinion on their side if the guy walks and her initial hostility and distrust is good currency when it comes to the other débardeurs trusting her evaluation.

He sends Kilian and Eugene with her to report to a foreman, after that. Getting the harbor back in operation is top priority. He’ll probably end up volunteering, too, but right now he’s gonna go with Lizzy to detail it all to Evrart.

\----

The area Lilienne leads them to would be, at first glance, unremarkable. The mixed savanna grasses long overgrew the graveyard.

Lilienne gestures expansively over the ground.

“Here they are, then, God rest them. Don’t know how you’re planning to find her, though. Wouldn’t be a bad idea to have them moved to L'Ossuaire Municipal, poor forgotten souls, but who has the money for that?”

PERCEPTION (Sight): Set among the grass with unusual regularity, stones. Unshaped rock placed ceremoniously to serve as the only memory of the nameless dead beneath your feet.

INLAND EMPIRE: An empty ritual pleading to appease haunts stripped of their mortal names who will never find justice.

CONCEPTUALIZATION: Forgotten souls. Didn’t Call Me Mañana call mortal names...

“Vessels of the soul,” Harry murmurs. He sees Kim and Lilienne attending him. “A boiadeiro with the Union told me names were vessels of the soul. I forgot mine after my bender, but I got it back,” he explains to Lilienne. He feels an ache in his breast. “And these people will never know theirs…”

The three of them stand a moment in silence, looking out over the modest burials.

“Maybe, that way, they’re free,” Kim suggests unsentimentally after appropriate consideration.

LOGIC: A deduction following naturally from the lieutenant’s belief he’s bound to the social expectations of others by the name he was given.

RHETORIC: His parents gave him that name.

“What if they’re lost out there, trying to find their way back to their families?” Harry says.

The woman alongside them holds her hand on her chin.

“Suppose there’s many cultures what assume the dead continue to share intersubjective experiences with the living,” she muses. 

Harry would have caught up on more of his philosophy if he thought he’d see her again. He wonders if enough might be buried somewhere in his mind to keep pace with her. 

“Well, you’ve the chance to put things right for one of them,” she continues. “I still don’t see how you plan to find her.”

Kim looks to Harry calmly. Only close knowledge of the lieutenant betrays a hint of apprehension.

“Go ahead.”

Harry passes his shovel to Lilienne.

He strips off his coat, tossing it to Kim who attentively folds it over his arm. He unbuttons his shirt sleeves and rolls them up to his elbows. He loosens his tie.

VOLITION: Remember there’s no need to take off your pants.

Harry can remember forgetting that in front of Kim and Neha, the novelty dicemaker, in his frustrated inability to exercise his senses and to their horror.

He leaves his pants buttoned.

“What’s this about?” Lilienne asks, unable to remain quiet any longer, frowning as she watches the proceedings.

DRAMA: No need to deceive the fair lady. Her thinking is suitably abstract.

“I’m going to ask the city where they buried her,” Harry says.

The fisherwoman studies him quizzically without rejecting the claim out of hand.

“I know this seems unusual but, Lilienne, if this works, may we record that you remembered her burial place?” Kim asks with professional civility.

SUGGESTION: The right question. It’s good that you’re on good terms with her.

Lilienne’s dark eyes widen.

“ _Seems_ unusual? Officer, if Harry here…” She shakes her head. “If the two of you find her grave by _asking the city_ , I imagine you can write down whatever you want. I might be struck silent for the rest of my life.”

They both give him space and quiet, standing away from him, though watching him work. 

At first it’s hard to focus.

Sobriety has been especially rough this morning, like having his mind dragged over gravel. He woke up with the pressure in his head from the alcohol cravings nagging him. He’s glad he had the case waiting for him, because the conflict he felt over missing a chance with the young man he’d been in rapturous conversation with and anxiety over somehow catching wrath for his nocturnal transgression from an in-reality uninformed Kim made not hitting the bottle a struggle. 

And if he didn’t hit the bottle, why not amphetamine to boost his self-confidence? To boost his energy after a second restless night? And if not that, pyrholidon to lubricate a morning together with Kim with a mind otherwise raw and exposed...

He’d been unhelpfully offered a list of other possibilities, down to the tantalizing word on the street about the trendy new hunch with a stratospheric high that lasts no longer than the rush of injection but the junkies say it’s worth it, that it hits like nothing else.

He could have taken a gamble with something just to shut his vocal passenger up.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: No complaints about shooting the messenger if you do it with an opium derivative.

_Stop talking. I have to concentrate._

A minute or more passes with only the sound of the wind through the grasses, the chatter of birds, and the grumble of a distant, passing motor carriage.

A chill races through him, the muscles at the base of his hair follicles contracting, fine hairs standing on end, suddenly sensitive to the movement of the air around them. Like this, his whole body comes alive, a receptive instrument tuning itself to the atmosphere until the subtlest drop or rise in pressure, faintest acceleration or deceleration of air molecules and barest fluctuations of temperature speak a secret, soundless language that metamorphosizes to visions, sometimes words, in his mind.

SHIVERS: The dead weight of the body is suspended in a blue plastic tarp. It falls heavy to the ground, no longer human, bloated and in decay, torn apart by scavengers, both aquatic and avian, and still soaking wet. The last warmth that touched this body was that of a stranger’s hand performing the Stations of Breath before the tarp closed around it. It will grow colder yet in the ground and, over the cruel years, decompose.

Its place of decomposition lies relatively shallow. The diggers stop digging when water seeps up from the soil. Deeper, and they’ll be swamped in their work. They lower the shapeless lump into the grave and cover it over in coastal savanna soil. They drop an oblong stone of jagged outline at the head of the grave, one sharp end jutting into the air above its low profile.

PERCEPTION (Sight): There.

Harry’s shudders quietly as he rubs his sides from the cold.

It still awes him, this impossible ability that possesses him. For all he doesn’t remember the total dimensions of his former life, he knows it sets him apart from prosaic people like Kim.

His eyes remained fixed on the makeshift headstone peeking through the grasses.

“I found her.”

“Alright,” Kim says. “Let’s unearth her.”

No doubt, no hesitation colors his voice. He simply returns Harry’s coat to him, taking it for a fact that the grave they upturn will be the correct one. 

Harry considers the garment’s warmth, then sets his coat in the grass, knowing that with his success things are about to get muddy.

All of Harry tells him Kim’s faith is genuine. 

If he’s disconcerted by Harry’s revelation, he’s no longer demonstrating that, composed in his acceptance.

The same can’t be said of the puzzled Lilienne, who passes the shovel back to Harry when he holds out his hand for it.

Kim sheds his prized bomber jacket and keeps it off the grass by leaving it folded on top of Harry’s coat.

It’s good they have Lilienne as an accomplice. Harry’s stiff shoulder aches fiercely and he takes more than one break as they move soil. Kim, too, sometimes needs to rest, not a fragile man but not particularly robust, either. She may be tired from a morning’s fishing, but as they settle into the pace of it they’re able to remain digging two at a time while the third takes their reprieve.

At first there’s talk and banter. Harry tries to convince Kim junior officers would be honored to assist them on this assignment (despite their unspoken shared desire to perform paranatural investigation as quietly as possible). Kim once again remarks snidely on Harry’s indeterminate age, inquiring if, in his enthusiasm, he might in fact be a junior officer. He after all once thought Harry was fifty-six.

Lilienne tells stories about her children’s adventures, and the strangest things that have wound up in her nets. Kim diverts them with the details Harry doesn’t remember of the catastrophic loss of the first luxury interisolary commercial aerostatic, the Harnankur, to the pale, leading to the special Harankur edition of pale aged vodka Harry blew thirty reál on the last time he was in Martinaise.

After the first hour, there’s only silence and sweat and the sound of feet stomping shovels deeper into the soil, soil hitting the pile beside the grave, and panting breaths.

Harry volunteers to return to the fishing village to haul a ten liter jug of water back to the graveyard. It takes, primarily, only one arm, even if the strain stretches across his shoulder.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Don’t you stop to rest! You spent last month sitting on your ass. Do you want to _live_ like you’re fifty-six?

PAIN THRESHOLD: Don’t listen to Coach. You feel like your shoulder was hit with a weapon that could destroy a Coupris 40, because it was.

ENDURANCE: You’re healing. You can take this. Why leave them thirsty?

The three of them share the container greedily, water dribbling down chins, poured down backs. Harry tries not to think about last night, and Kim, or the white t-shirt sticking translucent to him, or the sweat trickling off his grimy skin, or Lilienne’s bare, flexing arms, either.

Finally, a discolored tarp peeks through the soil.

REACTION SPEED: Jackpot!

“I’d started to believe you led us to a rock garden,” Kim, stepping back for a reprieve, says to Lilienne with a smile. He scrubs at his sweat-beaded forehead with the back of his gloved hand, smearing dirt on his skin.

“It’s a cemetery, all right,” Lilienne says. “Now we get to see what’s left of her. If it is your ‘her.’”

EMPATHY: She’s still conflicted over what to make of your earlier performance.

ENDURANCE: This isn’t over yet.

It takes another twenty minutes to fully expose the wrapped corpse, some one meter and twenty centimeters and thankfully no deeper in the earth.

“I’ll do the honors,” Kim decides for them after appraising Harry. It’s true it would be unnecessary to subject himself to being hauled out of the hole, or them to hauling him, unless it becomes necessary.

Kim lands lightly, feet braced on either side of the corpse, and crouches to unfold the tarp, his fingertips briefly braced on the soil wall of the grave, damp white shirt clinging to his slim frame, the belt of his pants holding them taut against his flat buttocks.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Add that to the spank bank.

VOLITION: Do not.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: I forgive you for pretending to be a prude because you were singing my tune, last night.

VOLITION: …

RHETORIC: He’s right. When you didn’t stand idly by, you abetted.

COMPOSURE: Don’t start fighting. They’re going to notice.

“Harry,” Kim’s voice breaks in. “You’ve done it.”

He stands tall above the open tarp, gazing down on what only just resembles human remains. Slimy, greenish-black synthetic fabric overlays what’s still distinguishable of the corpse, the business suit seemingly oversized compared to the fleshless muck of damp-softened bones. It speaks of the woman’s original sturdy build.

The rotted bag, unclaimed by human scavengers, remains looped over the shoulder.

“Exactly who we’re looking for.” Lilienne speaks softly, as if in a church. “All that remains of her.” 

Harry hasn’t seen her like this, the perpetually hard and determined set of her face vanished in her awe, as beyond her realm of experience as Kim had been their first week together.

A few deliberate blinks and she comes around to her new reality, smiling wry.

“Can’t say if anything was ever yellow.”

COMPOSURE: She’s not ready to accept everything she’s seen, but she won’t let that deter her.

EMPATHY: A life on the margins is a series of unpredictable impositions. In a way, she’s used to this.

Kim nods with professional affect.

“Although synthetic fabric biodegrades slowly, when the body liquifies the fabric is stained.” 

He peels off his gloves, setting them beside the grave, and reaches into his pants’ deep pockets for his Trigat Sunshine Mini, handling the instrument with care. 

He captures two photographs from different angles and slides them into his notebook, then the notebook and camera back into his pockets, before pulling his dirty gloves back over his clean hands and looking to Harry.

“The photograph and corpse will support the identification. Hopefully we can obtain her dental records to confirm it,” he says. “We have to be careful, the remains of the skull are soft.”

Harry calculates that, with care, the three of them should be able to remove the tarp from the grave. He’s not looking forward to it. It’s more stress on the flesh of his shoulder which, although he’s been doing the mobility exercises Nix assigned him, is now in a distracting amount of distress.

The tarp is thankfully longer than the remains, and with its ends folded over Harry is able to join Kim in the hole they’ve dug to hoist the re-wrapped corpse ground-high, with Lilienne dragging it onto secure foundation.

When she’s helped Kim out of the grave and they’ve both helped Harry, who’s breathing through his teeth, the fisherwoman takes a seat and a drink from their communal water jug, eyeing the concealed body and announcing:

“I don’t believe in this kind of thing.”

Still wet with sweat, and far dirtier yet than before he went grave diving, Kim pushes a hand through his damp, matted hair and gives a curt nod.

“Of course not. Who would? You remembered where the body had been buried because of the debate over selling the bag. We were lucky.”

“Suppose that’s it. Suppose that’s exactly how it happened,” the woman says from a great and critical distance from the situation.

SUGGESTION: As tired and in as much pain as you may be, gratitude is in order.

Harry shakes himself out of his torpor, his long hair glued to his neck by his own sweat.

His grin slides in place.

“Thanks for this, Lilienne. Really. We wouldn’t have gotten this done under the radar without you.”

Lilienne passes the water jug up to Kim with a self-effacing smile.

“Don’t consider it a favor to the RCM. Wouldn’t like the Union to get wind of that. Somebody shows you a miracle, you stick through it.”

INLAND EMPIRE: She sits in awe of your glorious, sacred communion with the soul of your city.

LOGIC: Accumulated evidence has led me to suspect the events you experienced were physical and procedural.

CONCEPTUALIZATION: The dimensions of a miracle are incalculable. The pale is a miracle. Your communion was carnal.

Harry realizes in this moment that although the chill has passed the memory of the changes his body underwent to make itself receptive remain on his skin like a ghost.

“I’ll transport the body to processing. I’m afraid there’s not going to be room for you on the trip, detective. I’ll have to return for you, afterwards,” Kim says apologetically. “The disadvantage of a sports MC.”

Although he’s never ridden in one, Harry has seen that in a Coupris 40 it’s possible for a passenger to ride in the front seat. Not so in the racing designed Kineema. He understands the moist remains are too vulnerable to damage for him to even attempt to ride in the back with them.

“It’s fine, Kim. I’ll kick around the fishing village,” he demurs.

ENCYCLOPEDIA: Lilienne is an intelligent woman possessed of theoretical philosophical knowledge you have yet to accumulate. 

RHETORIC: She has a way with words. Her perspective on your abilities could be unique.

SUGGESTION: One thing at a time. Wait until you’re alone. It will be easier to have a conversation when you’re not relocating a corpse.

They remove the body to the back of the Kineema. Between flat savanna and open road it’s an easy enough tasked compared to the hardship of gravedigging.

They all agree the grave ought to be filled in. A hole that deep is a hazard to wildlife and to hunters, as well as anyone else who might be strolling the woods at night. That, Kim says, can be left to junior officers now that there will be no questions of the body’s provenance.

In a short time, the Kineema is tearing away down the asphalt with both a roar and an infernal scream.

“Never been so eager to change out of my waders, but I’m afraid we’ve no clothes for a man your size. The men left around here are short or stringy or they’re both,” Lilienne says as they turn to head down the mesh ramp toward Illisible.

“It’s not so bad,” Harry lies, the coat thrown over his shoulder the only piece of clothing not sticking to his skin and trapping coarse dirt. “But I did want to talk.”

REACTION SPEED: That sounded like a chat up line.

“About what you saw,” he hastens to add.

Lilienne side eyes him, amused.

“That’s a tall ask, asking me to stay away from my bed.”

“I’m one and ninety,” Harry quips. 

“An attractive point,” the woman teases harmlessly. “Alright. But I need to scrub up and boil some coffee, so you’ll have to wait out, a?”

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Score us some coffee, man. 

“Think I could get in on some caffeine?”

SAVOIR FAIRE: You both sound like you’re hustling for narcotics.

“Imagine there’s enough in the can for two,” Lilienne says companionably. “And we need to eat, besides, though don’t expect more than a ploughman’s lunch. Why don’t you have a sit?”

She gestures across the courtyard, past where Isobel is laundering, maybe for herself or for a client from the Pox.

Harry takes his seat on the weather worn bench against the wall of Isobel’s side attachment, shielded from the sun by the rusted sheet metal above him. He lets his head fall back against the wall. His body exhausted and aching and his mind teetering on the edge of sleep, the voices are silent. 

He wakes up with a jolt at Lilienne’s _No rest for you yet, dimples_.

“Myself either,” she says, handing him a mason jar of coffee, the last slivers of melted ice cubes floating on the coffee’s dark surface, and a plate with onions, a hearty chunk of bread, a slice of ham and a thick wedge of cheese, before taking her seat on the bench beside him.

She’s washed the dirt off her and changed into a loose blouse and billowing skirt, both decorated with blue print — clothes to keep the heat at bay. She holds her own jar of coffee, and must have already ate.

“Ice may have watered it down, but that’s less unpleasant than hot coffee, a?” she says companionably, looking as tired as he feels, her dark eyes bleary.

CONCEPTUALIZATION: She’s no less beautiful for her fatigue. There’s beauty in strength. She’s been strong for the sake of righting the wrongs of the past, and for you.

EMPATHY: She won’t be taken in by another addict, but she knows the bottle. She sympathizes with you.

INLAND EMPIRE: You showed her something wondrous. She wishes to be inducted into the Mysteries.

Are _there Mysteries?_

“Now, go on,” she says, and then drinks deeply from her jar.

“You’re a philosopher, right?” Harry says, wetting his lips, then sipping from his own coffee.

Besides helping with the fatigue, the infusion of caffeine will help battle off the withdrawal cravings that haven’t quite been alleviated since morning.

Lilienne’s eyes scan the scene of poverty around them, the defiant cinderblock houses built for the sake of self-determination, one a dilapidated husk, the small spit of beach where modest boats lie with their hulls exposed to the sun, the jetty, its rotted wood not patched but overlaid with boards where it’s weak, and the water where the outflow of the canal meets the saltwater of the bay.

“I read philosophers. I watch the world around me. Although some people might hold you can’t be called a philosopher unless you pay for the honor and I’ve no intention of that.”

Harry gives an _Mmh_ of understanding and takes a minute to collect his thoughts.

Stomach empty, he sets into the food, piecing together mouthfuls from the disparate ingredients.

He lets the plate rest as he focuses on his point.

“I used to want to think I was having some kind of eerie, mystical, transcendental experience. Paradox B stuff. Astral projection. Connecting with the higher realms. Psychic energies…”

He doesn’t need to tell her that ‘used to’ means for the first month of his life. Last month. That would be hard to explain and it’s besides the point.

“But now I’ve been sober,” he goes on, “and I’m starting to wonder, what if that’s bullshit? When I get these visions, I get goosebumps, and my body hair stands on end. It’s like I can _hear_ the pressure and the temperature changing. Shouldn’t something paranatural be…”

He doesn’t know what word he’s looking for. Transcendental, maybe, but that seems redundant. 

No one offers another option. They’re lagging from overwork, again, fleetingly leaving him to his private thoughts. He tries out something else.

“Something paranatural shouldn’t be physical, should it?”

Lilienne stretches her legs out beneath her skirt, crossing them at the ankles, wearing practical brown boots.

“That is a philosophical question. Alright. Let me think about it.”

She sits in contemplation, drinking her coffee while Harry eats, changes of expression flickering over her brow as she forms her thesis.

She offers him a smile.

“Aye, I reckon the paranatural shouldn’t be physical. But then maybe it has to be? How can something _be_ paranatural — _beyond natural?_ You’d be talking about something impossible in nature, but here you are, still part and parcel of nature as far as we know.” She shrugs the strong shoulders beneath her blouse. “It’s a lazy word, ‘paranatural’. An excuse to let your imagination run wild when finding the explanation would be a chore.”

A familiar wave of despair breaks over Harry, roaring down to swamp him. He’s too fatigued to shrug it off, and sets his plate and coffee beside him to momentarily rest his elbows on his knees and rub his forehead, his voice roughened with emotion.

“I’m trying to get better, Lilienne. The drinking, the drugs, the psychosis. But then something like this happens and I think, how much of it am I really hallucinating? And if I’ve been so fucked up, how do I even know?”

Lilienne rubs her thighs, working out sore muscles.

“Sometimes my husband got so drunk he’d start asking if I was cheating on him, and then he’d cry. There was no reason for him to have that idea in his head. He was drunk, that’s all. He felt miserable, so he decided something must be causing it, and he started taking shots in the dark,” she says. “You struck me as a hell of a drunk, and god knows what else you had in your system. You could get all sorts of ideas.”

LOGIC: It’s obviously more than that, but she doesn’t need to know about us.

ENCYCLOPEDIA: Remember that your beliefs are not without precedent.

After a moment more of massaging his forehead, Harry corrects his posture.

“I’m not the only one who thinks they speak to the city. Other people call her La Revacholiere.”

“Obviously I believe we live in mutually agreed upon reality and we aren’t forever unable to share experiences with each other. I’ve said as much.” She stops to pick her words carefully. “People praying to the city versus what you do, though. I’m not sure that’s the same thing at all.”

“Hit me with the Gottwaldian stuff,” Harry says, picking his coffee back up to chug more than half of what remains with his drunk’s expertise.

Lilienne doesn’t comment on that, smiling, again, instead.

“You’re applying the explanation of La Revacholiere through a cultural lens handed down through generations, probably predated by something on Mundi. That’s crystal. And what you’re experiencing gives you an accurate _translation_ of the real world. We’ve a dead body and everything to prove that.” 

She shakes her head. 

“I’m afraid the Gottwaldians won’t get us much further. They agree with the psychologists that a false belief is indistinguishable from a dead-on one from the experiential perspective, if big words are what you’re looking for. ”

LOGIC: All of us are a mistranslation of sensory input which manifests as independent personalities. There is no compelling reason to believe She’s any different.

AUTHORITY: I am not a mistranslation of sensory input. I am the personification of The Law.

VOLITION: He has a point, but it doesn’t make him as different as he wants to think.

Beside him, Lilienne focuses in a moment of recognition.

“No — I’m wrong, there’s a little more than that. At least the idea of the lifeworld says you’re doing the right thing asking other people to bring your beliefs up to snuff. That gets you further than epistemological nihilism.”

Harry chuckles, scratching his mutton chops.

“Thanks. It’s good hearing it from somebody else. Kim doesn’t like to talk about this.”

He doesn’t blame him, but who else in the world has he had to talk to?

“Doesn’t like to hear about your normal, boring conversations with the genius of Revachol? Imagine that,” Lilienne says smugly, finishing her coffee as he finishes his own.

He digs out his Astras and slides out a soldier. She aristocratically holds out a slender but work calloused hand. Harry scoffs and offers the first cigarette in tribute, securing another for himself. They lean together to share the same flame. 

“How did you get into philosophy?” he asks on his first exhalation.

“I’d been a precocious reader. I dropped out of school in la quatrième, when I was thirteen. It must have touched a nerve with my teacher. He passed on books from his own library through my father.” The fisherwoman looks wistful. “Imagine how much time I have to think, out on the water.”

Harry grunts agreeably.

“For me it’s entroponetics and economic theory. I don’t know how I got started. Honestly, I have a lot of holes in my memory. I know things were shit. I remember that. But I got my hands on those books somehow,” he says.

PERCEPTION (Touch): A slight body pressed into the corner of the room, covers draping the lower body and legs drawn up beneath them. A book too big for small hands with a paperboard cover resting open, it’s spine supported by the thighs.

CONCEPTUALIZATION: A young boy reading a grade school textbook cover to cover as if it’s the gateway to a distant, magical world. Why is he curled with it in a corner? Because the school year will end and it will be taken away from him.

He doesn’t articulate the sudden fragment of memory, just holds it in his mind a moment before letting it pass.

“You can see the past, Officer Harry. Can you see the future?” Lilienne asks, preoccupied with her own thoughts.

“Sometimes,” he gruffs. “If you mean can I see _your_ future? Your kids’? Maybe. If I tried. I think I’m getting more control.” His gaze fixes on his cigarette’s glowing cherry as he holds the little paper cylinder away from his lips. “I’m not sure how much of that I wanna do. Puts us neck deep in causality.”

“Wouldn’t want that,” Lilienne says slyly.

They sit smoking until their cigarettes are spent, exhaustion settling over them both like heavy fog. They snuff the butts out underfoot. 

Lilienne’s eyelids begin to droop. She startles awake, only to yawn.

“Hate to leave you to wait alone, dimples, but this is it for me. I’m turning in. It’ll be three AM before I know it.” She regards him in steady appraisal. “Hope you’ll be able to figure things out. Maybe you’ll tell me about it, someday.”

“You helped,” he says. He needs her to really know that. “And I’m gonna get help from one of those psychologists, too. I promised Kim and my old partner, Jean.” 

Affection for the woman beside him breaks through. He wants to be with someone like her, confident and resolved. Like her and like Kim. 

“I’ll try to make it back,” he tells her.

She uncrosses her ankles and stands, groaning from stretching muscles that are less cramped than his will be when he finally moves, on account he’s lingering longer and, anyway, she’s in better shape.

“Hope to see you,” she says with a look fond and genuine that’s interrupted when she yawns wide again, reaching up to cover her mouth. “Goodnight, Harry. Or goodday, as it is. You just leave that plate on the bench when you go”

She collects her empty mason jars and leaves him to the remaining food. He watches her go, but not long enough for her to make her way into her house. He finishes his meal in a hypnagogic state, vivid, concrete images, the precursors of dreams, passing across his thoughts. 

When his head falls back against the old wooden boards at his back he’s already plunging rapidly toward unconsciousness.

He has a key to the guest cabin, and Kim would know where to find him. He’s filthy, though, and doesn’t want to make Isobel wash the sheets and covers. 

It’s enough to sleep here. At this point, he could fall asleep anywhere.

\----

The sun dipping toward the horizon, Kim drives his Kineema into an open stall at the refueling station, parked between two pumps, the other stalls occupied exclusively by lorries, big and heavy. The stench of mazut chokes the air.

He climbs out of the cabin, willfully ignoring the filthy grave dirt left on the white suede seats behind him despite the body bag securing the corpse and his flawed attempt to secure the seat cover when he’s already covered in soil. Transporting Harry back to the 41st can only exacerbate the situation.

Cleaning the cabin will be a bitch. He already accepted that, and he’s even — mostly — put it out of mind, despite the earlier way it curdled his guts.

After communicating with the station on the radio, he took a longer drive than he thought, transporting Holly to a morgue under RMP jurisdiction.

The convenient fact that they have an open missing person’s case means procuring the dental records was fobbed on a better staffed, funded and located precinct. Their morgue is better equipped to preserve the delicate body, besides, unquestionably outfitted with newer, more reliable freezers and a higher tech lab. 

Whether he took Holly to the district morgue or the 41st’s, the resources would be worse than modest.

Therefore, the Kineema is guzzling greedily from the fuel nozzle here in Martinaise instead of waiting to be refueled at the station. Except for lacking the red dye to deter theft, the fuel is the same. Elsewhere, there would be a matter of taxed and untaxed fuel, but here there’s no one to collect taxes. Yet.

He can imagine the taxes necessary for implementing a welfare system are on the Claires’ agenda. If he remembers correctly, they executed some kind of taxation scheme to support the strike, although he heard it described less charitably than that.

He feels a great need to sleep, his muscles oversore. His driving has been, for once in his life, cautiously modest. 

“Hey. Kim Kitsuragi,” an unfamiliar voice calls out. 

Kim turns in the direction of his name to see it’s one of the men who was sitting with Ruby, yesterday. The younger of the two, who Kim distinctly remembers asking him if he was _Titus’ cop_ , lean muscle and tight blonde curls in wispy ringlets, part of his heritage Ilmaraan or Semenese.

He’s coming across from the facing row of lorries. He’s been refueling a vehicle himself, Kim assumes. It’s easy to deduce he’s collaborating on the transportation of raw chemicals with Ruby.

Kim releases the handle of the nozzle as the young man reaches him. 

“You were…?” he asks, standing peaceably but preferring not to be at the disadvantage.

“It’s Léandre,” the young man says with a nod of his head. He doesn’t change tack. “Listen. You’ve gotta get out of here.”

Kim regards him with some confusion. His hardened and certain tone belies his lack of aggression. It strikes him as wrong. 

He’s suddenly certain something has gone very wrong. 

The cold finger of adrenaline touches and passes, leaving his heart pounding.

“What happened?”

“A crane went down in the harbor. I heard there’s people dead. This isn’t a good town for cops.” 

Léandre glances over the civilians nearby. Kim’s gaze sedately follows his with the thought it would be a poor idea to look too nervous — too vulnerable.

“I’ll be leaving, then,” he agrees. There might be no immediate danger, or there might be a hometown boy nearby looking to make a point. 

Evrart’s voice rings in his mind.

_”We got arm wrestling champions, rowing club people, ex-coal miners — tough guys, all ready to spring into action for their home base.”_

If he wasn’t on good terms with Titus and Ruby, that man might have been Léandre. As youthful as he is, there’s a resolve underneath his generosity that says he’s not out of place with the Hardies.

Kim pauses. 

“I want you to know I’m politically impartial. Not some sort of… Moralintern peone.”

Léandre narrows his eyes at him, puzzling him out. Suddenly his expression breaks into one of disbelieving delight and he laughs.

“They’re killing us out here and you’re _impartial?_ God, man, and you guys wonder why you catch hate.” The laughter overcomes him another minute, bright and genuine. He shakes his head, curls bobbing, grinning. “Come on. Get out of here. I’m gonna switchblade your paint job.”

The threat to the Kineema barely registers — a sharp but fleeting twinge — when the greater part of Kim wants to defend his pride. Assert he meant he wants justice for the dead.

It burns that he chose his words poorly and he has no choice but to swallow that.

“I’m going,” he says, voice cold and tense.

He looks between the gas pump and fuel station. He has yet to pay. Grimacing, he sighs and takes out his wallet, checking the meter and passing twenty reál to Léandre with a look of authority warning him not to pocket it.

He won’t get a receipt. Therefore, the station won’t be reimbursing his empty wallet. However, it would be worse to steal gas under a security camera when the RCM is no doubt already less and less welcome by the hour.

Léandre leans back on one of the posts supporting the metal canopy overhead as Kim returns the fuel nozzle to the pump, both keeping an eye on him and keeping lookout, holding the folded bill in his hand, for what that’s worth.

Kim manages a terse but authentic _Thank you_ despite the sting of his pride.

He’s at the fishing village before he can recognize to himself that no matter how carefully he worded his sentiment, it would be one Léandre would reject. 

He’s certain neutrality is the correct and principled position for a civil servant to assume. 

The moral position.

_“Lieutenant, are_ you _a moralist?”_

_Harry’s words catch him by surprise in the dim of Apartment 28 where they stand with coalition official Charles Villedrouin with his sagging face and angular glasses._

_“Hmm, me? I… uh…”_

_He doesn’t think of himself as a moralist anymore. He understands that, for example, atrocities are being conducted under Coalition authority. There are soldiers, like the dead Lely, fighting in proxy wars, even as elsewhere — or even in the same places — the Coalition provides humanitarian assistance._

_“I’m a lieutenant of the RCM, dedicated to maintaining law and order in Revachol.”_

_“A very moralist answer,” the well dressed man says, nodding in approval._

Maybe it is.

A shadow descends on him, unsettling. Something he can’t quite shake as he climbs out of his MC to go and locate Harry.

It’s chased away by his unsuppressed smile at the sight of the man slumped filthy and unconscious, but in complete sobriety, snoring on the bench in the twilight.

\----

Precinct 57 stands sharp-edged in the dark, a squat two story black rectangle in the moonless night.

Marcel Tremblay breathes heavy with anxious anticipation, an unlit fire bomb in his right hand, rag hanging over the lip of the bottle, and a lighter in his left. The improvised incendiary device stinks of gasoline.

He doesn’t stand alone, friends and fellow unionists beside him in the shadows. 

It started as comments carelessly floated as they went through the monotonous work of countless safety inspections, longshoremen assigned to work gangs on account they didn’t know who could be trusted on their own.

What Wild Pines deserves. What those Coalition bastards have coming to them. What the fucking pisspigs turning a blind eye to the escalating sabotage deserve. 

At first they were called in when the odd machine failed or a suspicious injury occurred. They surveyed the scenes. Took statements. Asked why the dockers were so sure it was sabotage. Never made any arrests.

Eventually, the Union stopped calling them. They’ve started calling Evrart’s men to the scenes, both the comms guys with headpieces and cameras and members of Titus Hardie’s little militia in Martinaise, who Marcel hears are taking custody of suspects.

Meanwhile the cops sit here on the wharf in this duraluminium fort waiting for a débardeur to damage some rich fuck’s property, which is when they’ll show up in force, ready to extort money from whoever they can.

Two dockers dead? The coppers showed up on their own, for once, but everybody knows that’s just a show to try and keep the longshoremen pacified. It’s going to be investigated this time, they said. Somebody might be brought to justice, they said. Nobody will be. Marcel already knows that. What the pigs are really saying is keep working. Keep the fucking economy flowing.

Marcel’s had enough of that. He’s finished with this sharp-edged perpetual threat sitting here packed with militiamen on his and his people’s turf. It’s time to make a point, that they won’t keep getting _fucked_ and just play nice. They won’t sit idly by and give the saboteurs the benefit of the doubt because the bastards in this tin can would pour into town if they started taking physical measures against them. Not after people have died.

So here they are, about thirty of them. They’ve got their petroleum bombs and their bricks and a couple of the guys, they’ve got pistols in case the pigs wanna make it a firefight. 

Evrart has to know they’re here. Evrart knows everything that happens from Terminal B all the way down to Terminal H. The fact nobody’s tried to stop them means the Union will be behind them. Medically. Legally.

“You ready?” a longshoreman, Marcel thinks his name is Clayton, raises his voice to ask.

Marcel thinks about his sister. Her sunny freckles and red hair and her skin growing paler day by day and her body thinner. He’s losing her to cancer. She’s got nothing like union healthcare. She counts on him to help with the bills. 

He’s afraid what will happen if he gets shot dead here, tonight.

But he’s seen her frustrated, crying, too many times, now, when she grew up beside him smiling even when the food stretched thin.

He’s sick with anger. He’s enraged by his helplessness.

In and out. Bricks through the windows, poor man’s grenades flying, and nobody expects him to stick around if the bacon starts shooting through the windows. Run. Guys with steel backbones and less to lose will stay to risk arrest.

They break cover as one group, boots slapping concrete, bricks flying, windows shattering. Exhilarated Marcel flicks his lighter and brings the bright flame to the tip of the soaked rag. It blazes bright. He runs forward three more steps. An inhalation and he sends it flying through the waiting hole. A burst of flame on impact. Not the first bomb and not the last.

Shouts from inside the station. Gunfire rings out. Marcel turns. He runs. He knows a slug sinks into his right shoulder blade. He feels the blood, hot. The bullet wound, though, feels like nothing at all. He cradles his arm against his chest and keeps running.

He’s a long way off and his shirt’s sticking to his back when he stops to look over his intact shoulder.

Flames cover the furniture within the precinct and lick out the windows against the dark of the night.

A wild grin lights his face.

The cop can is burning.


	10. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Image in this chapter is **NSFW** )

**February, ‘43**

_You don’t gotta rush to get a place. You can always stay with me._

Glen didn’t think he’d regret those words. 

T was down, upset, sleeping on Tibbs’ couch, but Tibbs had a wife and a kid and Titus was a big guy involved in a world of trouble.

That’s why Bea broke it off with him. Almost five years together and the bitch jumped ship as soon as Titus came back from the hospital, his chest stitched up.

And, okay, it was a bad way to find out what had been standing up to the besmerties and Barmy Army has become an organized outfit ramping up for war. Glen was as surprised as anybody when he learned one of their own friends tried to kill T in his and Bea’s apartment. But telling a guy to get out of his own place when he’s just been shanked is a bitch move if Glen ever heard one.

Now, T’s sleeping on Glen’s fold out couch. With Glen. In the one room for everything but the guns. 

When he made the offer, Glen was thinking about how Titus might need to dial back work to mend up, and how that didn’t fit with putting money down on a new place when he was still on the lease with Bea. The problems on his mind were stuff like not calling Bea a bitch to T’s face, and the lack of space mixed up with his own fight against his temper.

He hadn’t been thinking, well, shit, Titus is single now, ain’t he? Single, too down to leave the house for anything but work, drunk all the time, taking up space, lying there breathing steady in the dark while Glen lies beside him and watches him, thinking about how he used to get his dick out on this couch and let Glen suck it.

He thinks about a lot of things. Like that he’s done way more than suck a friend’s dick, now. He’s fucked all kinds of guys. Fucked all but a couple of them in the ass, though, which he can’t much see T being into on account he’s straight and all. 

He thinks about darker things, too. The kind of fantasies he’s never had a living body next to him every night to dream about. Wrapping his hands around T’s throat and crushing it. Getting his own knife out and carving him a few more scars, just to hear him scream. Tying him up, or tying him down, and jerking him around how he feels like. Making him choke on his cock. Gag for him until he pukes. The kind of sick shit he’s not supposed to think and doesn’t even wanna think that intrudes again and again. 

T knows he has sick thoughts, that they can get so bad they freak him out. He’s told him that. But they’ve never fixed themselves on Titus like this, and he can’t talk to him about that.

One night, they’re drinking, kicked back on that couch. Glen can’t wait for Titus to stop looking so fucking moody all the time.

On his sixth high gravity beer, Titus _is_ looking less moody, though. Less moody, and he keeps looking at Glen. Not eye to eye, either, more like at his thighs or something. It’s getting Glen going, for sure. Doesn’t feel fair, T being weird like this, Glen hot under his flannel collar, his jeans getting tight at the crotch. Where T is maybe staring.

“Fuck is up with you?” he snaps when it’s just not stopping.

Titus shotguns the rest of his beer and tosses the can aside. He pushes himself up on the couch just to slide over closer, kind of uncoordinated, but then the guy’s plastered.

Glen’s pulse jumps off hammering. He sits there, holding his beer, while Titus sets his lips, looking down Glen’s body again. Glen doesn’t do anything, doesn’t try to stop him, as T lays a hand on his thigh, gives it a squeeze, digging into the muscle with his fingertips, seizing his attention.

T brings his gaze up to Glen’s, brown eyes alcohol-glazed but intense right through it, dead set on him.

“You guys do anal, right?”

What the fuck is Glen supposed to say to that when he’s been spending every night thinking about how it’d be if they fucked?

The angry part of him wants to know what Titus means by _You guys_ — the idea gets in his head that T can’t tell the difference between him and the fairies. It sets him off and he almost blows a fuse.

His dick’s too hard for that to win. T’s hand is still on his thigh, heat bleeding through the worn denim. He’s missed seeing T look at him like this, need coming off him.

He swallows the anger back, picks his words.

“I might fuck with ass stuff.”

Next thing, Titus’ grasp has left his thigh and the guy’s got the back of his neck, leaning in.

Glen artlessly shoves his hand into Titus’ face, and hard, smashing his nose. 

Who the hell does he think he is trying to kiss him? Drunk bastard after him like a piece of ass because his girlfriend blew him off.

It sets Titus back, his friend cursing, hand recoiling to hold his sore nose.

“The hell, T? You a faggot?! I said you wanna fuck, we’ll fuck!”

His voice fills the shack, bigger and louder than the close space they’re penned in. Cursing, too, not as drunk as Titus, he rolls off the couch to find his lube, off in a jacket pocket. He hasn’t been whacking off with it with T here. The old couch creaks and groans under his weight. Whoever made it wasn’t thinking of a couple men pushing past a hundred kilograms on it.

He tosses the lube on the bed and strips off his belt. It’s when his hands are on his fly that he’s socked in the stomach, the fact of what he’s doing suddenly clear and sharp through the watery haze of the beer. He feels the edge of the half-popped button cool and smooth under his thumb.

He can’t even look up, thinking about Titus’ eyes on him. This isn’t some fucking hookup with an airman who’ll be off to another isola in two days, might not ever come back. It’s Titus, who’s been here for him since he was fifteen and Titus was eighteen. Who dragged a real person out of the storm of fury that’s surrounded him his whole life. Who’s the only reason he’s alive — either because he would’ve gotten himself killed or because it wasn’t worth living with the anger anymore.

He’s wanted the guy longer than he’s known. Since he’d sit there dumbly watching Titus make out with that girlfriend of his, the first one, the teenage sweetheart who treated Glen like some dog T had picked up off the side of the road who didn’t care if he saw her getting felt up.

He pops the button on his fly. Unzips. If he’s shaking, so what. Titus is off his tits. Idiot better be able to get it up. Glen’s tried to blow him when he’s had whiskey dick. 

It’s never been Glen taking his pants off, though. Sure, he’s had his cock out when they’d whack off to porn mags together, once he got older, or if he jerked off after he blew him. Here he’s looking to get a dick up his ass. 

_Fuck this,_ he thinks, and shoves his pants off, the oversized red and black flannel shirt he has to wear to fit the girth of his arms hanging down over his hips so he’s not totally naked. He breathes in, shakey, and throws himself back on the foldout, the metal moaning complaint.

His face is so hot it must be beet red, as flushed as he gets when he’s on the rampage. But when he looks at Titus, the horny bastard is only looking at his naked lower body, crotch half hidden the way it is by the shirt.

It’s stupefying, having T look at him like he’s one of his girls. Has him hiding his flush behind his hair until he can start to get his head around it. His stomach’s knotted up, but his dick’s loving it. 

Kind of wishes he’d taken that kiss because he doesn’t kiss much but it’s not so damn awkward when you make out a little, only that’d be beyond fucked. Titus just liked getting his dick sucked in between women. He ditched him for Bea, already, and he’ll ditch him when the next steady bitch comes along. He may ditch him before that, even, when this whole drinking and mourning shit is over. 

Maybe Glen didn’t go to school, but he’s not dumb.

“You can’t fuck me through your pants, moron,” he snaps, relieved when T remembers that and takes his attention off him to start messing with his clothes, muttering _Right._

Glen likes this better, being able to watch him as the shirt peels off over his rugged muscles. He loves that body, not as exaggerated as it was when he boxed, but chiseled, pelt of fine hairs spreading out from the dark ridge that triangles between his pecs and runs down his abdomen. The developing scar stands out dark pink. 

He’s spent a lot of time whacking off about him, about the big dick that’s out, now, as Titus pushes his sweats down over his hips, the massive thighs that are gonna be pushing that thing inside him.

He gets excited, then, and starts fumbling his buttons open, heart beating against his rib cage.

He never saw this chance coming. He figured Titus and Bea would have that kid Titus mooned about wanting with her. That they’d get a real house or some shit like Tibbs and his girl have. That Titus and Bea were for good. 

Sucks for Titus that he got ditched. Doesn’t suck so much for Glen.

He doesn’t have as much hair on his body as T, or as dark. On his legs and his forearms it’s fine and blonde and tough to see. What’s on his chest just covers his pecs. It starts again below his belly button and gets thick, dark blonde at his pubes 

He doesn’t have a huge fucking dick like that, either. Just a dick.

He tries to get control of the flush on him when he’s lying out on his back, long hair around him. Not much to do about it, though, with Titus focused back on him, and not just his crotch, eyes skating over him, looking kind of curious but a lot more hungry.

“Glen,” he says.

He’s gonna follow it up with something Glen doesn’t want to hear. Doesn’t matter what it is. He doesn’t wanna hear it. Especially when T has been nothing but drunk and emotional since he got here.

“Lube up, boss,” he shoots back, ignoring the way his heart lurches out of rhythm at the idea.

He’s been under Titus lots of times. Wrestling around, getting tackled, getting slammed to the ground when something set his temper off and he’s gone at Titus swinging. 

He remembers the first time it did something for him. They were still kids, he was around eighteen, back then, so Titus had just broke twenty. About ten years ago.

They were coming off a rugby match, high off winning, shoving each other around, and then they were on the ground, roughhousing. He remembers the weight of T’s body on him, and his taunting, Glen face down and struggling and failing to break his hold. 

Suddenly he was all hot, his face burning, the arousal that punched him so strong that he didn’t recognize it for what it was because he’d only ever tried getting off with girls. He broke that hold, then, elbow flying back. He broke T’s nose, too, so there was nobody to fight once he got free. 

He doesn’t want anything to set him off, tonight. He might not get another shot at this — though, then again, he might. T can be a horny fuck and Glen used to be used to hearing him bitch about trying to find girls to do anal.

That big dick’s slick and glossy, now. Hard with blood, too, Titus jacking himself next to him, strong hand moving smooth over all that cock. Glen’s mouth waters with familiarity. He wants to suck that, again. Not tonight, but he wants to.

It’s been years. Almost four. Hasn’t let him at him since he got serious with Bea. That ain’t right.

He doesn’t wanna think about that right now, not about how it went down when the two of them broke it off.

At least whiskey dick’s not an issue.

“Get over here,” he says, voice sticking, feeling the rise and fall of his own broad chest.

Titus wets his lips and he pushes himself up. Next thing you know he’s between Glen’s thighs, pushing them wider open with a touch that makes Glen’s dick jump.

The sofa bed still wasn’t made for them, and the mattress sags. Glen’s as high up on it as he can be. They’ll just have to work around their height. 

Might be smarter to let T hit it from behind, but Glen likes to see him come, his drunken mind already trying to guess what that’ll look like when the guy’s thrusting over him, an image reeling just out of reach.

He sucks in a breath as T’s gaze drops between his legs. God, he’s really game to put it in his ass.

Titus looks back up the bed at him, tongue wetting his lips. There’s caution on him all of a sudden. Glen doesn’t like that.

“You needta let me open you up.”

Glen _pshaws_.

“Bullshit. You’re not playing with my ass like a fag. I can take a dick.”

Okay, it’s a lot bigger than anything anybody’s ever put up there, but he’s never had a problem so far. He’s not some chick that only comes up to T’s tits.

Titus searches his face.

“I don’t think that’s… Look…” He must see what Glen’s feeling, the anger picking up. “Alright,” he says. “Fine. We’ll try it your way.”

Glen enjoys the strength of him as he grips both hands under his thighs and pushes up, rolling his hips back like Glen’s legs aren’t huge. Sure, he likes to be the bully a hell of a lot more, but when it’s T? He likes being bullied around like this. Breaking Titus’ nose back then was on account of how hard it went to his dick.

He doesn’t get to enjoy Titus being over him, seeing it just takes that first pressure and then his body searing open to realize he made a huge fucking mistake.

“ **Shit.** Shit, shit, shit. Goddamnit! Get it out!”

He’s got a face on fire for a totally different reason as the pressure let’s up, his stomach heaving with heavy breaths. He’s too drunk to multi-task being mad with feeling his body out, praying nothing ripped. That second one’s a lot more important.

It’s a big, dull echo of an ache down there but nothing hurts.

Titus looks cheesed.

“What’d I fucking tell you?”

He looks worried, too, glancing between Glen’s ass and his eyes.

That doesn’t help the embarrassment Glen feels.

“I’m fine,” he snaps. “I’m fucking fine, alright? Just do whatever it is you do.”

With Titus not looking at him anymore, it’s different. T’s boozed up enough it’s taking a lot of concentration for him to lube up his fingers, squirting too much out, heavy drops falling cold on Glen’s lower belly, making him shiver.

A deeper tremor shudders through him as T slides his middle finger up his ass. He shuts his eyes, Titus’ touch soothing away that last soreness with the cool of the lube. 

For a second, he’d let him do anything. Fucking anything. He thinks about T necking with his girls in public. Yeah, even that. Whatever the fuck he wants. He wants him so bad his dick hurts. There’s not a guy he’s fucked in the past five years he’s wanted like he does T.

It’s stupid, he reminds himself as Titus pushes another finger in and works it around, taking his time down there. As in, he’s an idiot if he thinks Titus would have him out in the open like that, and Glen’s not one of those god damn faggot fairies who’d ever be out there acting like somebody’s girlfriend, either. He’s a longshoreman, and he’s a killer. You don’t keep anybody’s respect letting some guy suck bruises on your neck in a bar.

It’s stupider because Titus is a fucking hetero and Glen won’t ever pretend he can compete with hips and a perky pair of jugs. He won’t embarrass himself getting treated like one of Titus’ girls until the real thing comes along.

Just, having three fingers up his ass right now massaging their way into him apparently isn’t T trying to treat him like a girl. 

He made the wrong call, there. 

“Fuck yeah,” Titus says, sounding cheerful for the first time in weeks. 

Glen opens his eyes to see it, T grinning while he fucks him on his fingers up to the knuckle. He scoffs, corner of his own lip twitching up, and shuts his eyes, again, letting his body enjoy it.

“Feeling alright?” T asks.

“S’good,” Glen agrees. He’s pretty grateful T only slipped the head in and it didn’t end the whole night. He needs that cock in him, wants it to split him in two — just not _split_ him in two.

“Sorry about back there, I should’ve…”

Titus leaves it up in the air, maybe because he’s drunk enough words are hard to find. Because he’s swaying a little.

Glen laughs it off, his mood picking up alongside Titus’. He already knows T’s a horny drunk. Maybe it’s not so bad, both of them getting something they want.

“Whatever. You know I wouldn’t fuck with you if you didn’t have a freak dick.”

Way back when, before he knew he wanted to fuck dudes, and when he hadn’t had a lot of social experience, he hadn’t known not to look at it. In locker rooms, when they went swimming, when Titus took it out to piss.

He remembers Titus bringing it up, laughing: _Glen, you gotta stop staring at my dick._ He hadn’t known what to say because he was never really _trying_ to stare at T’s dick. Titus hadn’t even thought it was a gay thing though, it wasn’t that weird for him, he just said _Don’t sweat it. I know, it’s fucking huge. I’m used to it._

Glen did a lot of awkward things back then seeing he’d gotten kicked out of school in first grade for being a danger to the other kids. He’d stayed a danger, and all the local kids had known to steer clear of him.

His parents both worked, so he’d pretty much raised himself, with older members of the community trying and failing to look after him. Except Auntie LePlante, she let him hang around her house, didn’t try to make him talk or behave. She was a little touched, too.

T wrote off a lot back then, just understanding Glen didn’t know how to be around people.

“Shit, forgot to get a towel,” T says as he pulls his fingers out, leaving Glen feeling empty. 

He staggers up to do that, whatever he wants it for. He can’t seem to remember where he is for a second, even though the towels are right fucking there on a shelf. Glen laughs at him and lets him figure it out for himself.

This is kind of their thing. Drinking is definitely their thing. Fucking around when they drink at the shack used to be.

It wasn’t much different the first time Glen blew him, except it’d been Glen who got too drunk. Glen, twenty-two, staring at Titus’ crotch. Glen giving his shoulder a shove, saying _Lemmie suck your dick._

He’d never sucked a dick in his life, just had the hookers he tried to get off with suck his. Sometimes that worked and sometimes it didn’t. 

They’d had a mag out, they were jacking off, and all of a sudden Glen knew what he wanted to do. Wanted it so bad he couldn’t think about anything else, because he was blasted. The words fell out of his mouth.

Titus had been almost as drunk. Looked confused, but told him _Okay. Go ahead._

Right now, it turns out Titus wanted to pour water from the jug on the counter on the towel to wipe his hand off. He’s as great with the water as he was with the lube. It splashes off the linoleum they laid down in front of the kitchen counter back when they and some buddies built this place.

(He’s squatting illegally on somebody’s land, but it’s Martinaise and nobody’s counting.)

Thinking about the lube wet on his stomach gives Glen the idea to swipe it up on his fingers and jerk his rock hard dick for the minute it takes T to get back to him, Titus grinning dumb. 

Glen grins back. He’s not gonna let this get mixed up with something it’s not — Titus just Ioves anal, the guy’s so loud total strangers know that — but this is one person he doesn’t have to hide he wants dick from. This is what he’s been mad he’s been missing because of Bea, right? He oughta enjoy himself like he would if he blew him.

Glen was lying, though. He’d let this idiot fuck him without the monster cock. There’s so much of him, and that hair he wants to feel under his hands, and he’s a fun guy to be around, likes to be physical, and it’s so goddamn hot. 

The towel lands on the other side of Glen on the bed and Titus climbs back up, losing his balance as the mattress sinks, catching himself with a hand on each side of Glen’s waist. Glen likes him down there, cock level. He’d kill him if he tried to do any drunk charity dick sucking, but he still likes to think about him sucking his dick.

“Sure you can find my ass?” 

He lifts his hand and flicks him on the forehead, Titus flinches but his grin’s unflagging.

“I can find your ass, and I’m gonna put it in, too,” he flirts, poking a finger into Glen’s chest.

Glen slaps the finger away.

“Pfft. Good luck with that, boss.”

He wishes he wasn’t blonde, that he didn’t get so red when his face gets hot. 

It’s not just his stomach knotting with anticipation, it’s his whole chest clenched up around his lungs and his heartbeat in his dick, cock throbbing with pressure like he’s a teenager again.

Titus comes to some glassy realization, staring over him with the kind of dumb look Glen imagines plastered on his own face when he was around T as a kid.

“You’re _really_ fucking horny,” he laughs.

Glen wants to shoot something back, like _Because you’re really fucking useless_ or _Get the hell moving, already_ except his throat’s shut tight. His throat whines pure frustration.

Maybe that gets across he has an extreme need for dick. It gets T moving, big hands grappling his legs, forcing them up, again, and his hips open. The way Titus isn’t budged as Glen’s body shudders under his grip impresses on him what he already knows from years of scraps, that Titus can boss him around easy unless he really fights him.

Right now, all he wants is that cock, and he’s getting it, blunt force against his hips and then his body opening up to him in a slick, smooth stretch that aches a little but doesn’t kill his ass this time.

He listens to Titus exhale slowly, and then he starts to fuck his way in. He’s got a hand gripped under Glen’s thigh and one tight around his calf, both pushing his spread legs out of his way.

“Boss…” Glen mutters, but he doesn’t have anything to say. _This thing’s huge,_ maybe, but T knows that, the way Glen has his eyes screwed tight and how he’s breathing as he takes him says that loud and clear.

When did he start calling him that? A long time ago, it feels like, as a joke, a way of making fun of the fact he had him jumping to his orders like everybody else. It’s not a joke, anymore, since the outfit got serious. There’s people who want to kill them and Glen’s not in charge. On the streets he does what Titus says.

At first he can feel himself spasm from time to time around the massive thing taking up space in him — every time his stomach twinges with the fact that it’s T who’s thick inside him, scorching his skin. 

(T’s not some guy. He’s _the_ guy. Anybody else Glen’s ever fucked is some knock off compared to this.)

He starts to relax into it, though. It stops being a constant surprise and he starts ramping up with excitement knowing he’ll get slammed by the big body above him before this is over.

He’s getting loose. The cock sliding through him is picking up the pace. Except one of Titus’ legs keeps trying to skip off the edge of the mattress. It has Titus cursing about it, tightening his grip on Glen’s legs. It’s getting Glen shoved around while he thrusts. As much as he likes feeling Titus’ muscle he’s not gonna call this ideal.

“T, you know you can get horizontal, right?”

He might not. He’s drunk.

Titus stills.

“Thought I was supposed to keep my face out of yours,” he says, screwing up that face as he squints up Glen’s body.

Glen huffs his annoyance.

“You _are_. I’m not saying get kissy.”

He thinks he should’ve had more beer. He’s usually the harder drinker, blacking out on the regular. It’s a cure for the rage, and those dark thoughts that slip in. T has just had a lot more motivation lately.

He hisses as that whole massive cock’s dragged out of him. They wrangle with position, Glen shifting over closer to the middle of the couch. Then Titus is shifting over him on the mattress, finding his leverage, resting his heavy body over Glen’s and burying it back in him with a roll of his hips. Glen gets noisy about it, groaning underneath him while Titus grunts above him, picking up thrusting with a lot more success.

That’s good. It’s great. It’s fucking awesome. He’s yanked it to this so many times but having T in him, using him to get off? Way better than imagining it. The girth of that _thing_ on T has him stretched open wider than he could picture. T’s skin sliding over him, stomach to stomach, hair grazing against him, the tops of those thick thighs pressed up under his — shit, Glen could do this forever.

Propped up on one elbow, Titus smooths a hand over Glen’s pec, looking sort of curious, eyes on Glen’s. 

“Don’t start any fag shit,” Glen warns him, closing his eyes against Titus’ stare, that gaze kicking up too many feelings for him to deal with.

He’s feeling too good to really bitch about it. He’ll put up with a grope as long as Titus keeps up stroking him from inside. Fuck knows Titus gets handsy when he’s drunk, mouthing all over his girls while he paws for skin out in public.

T doesn’t stay at it too long, feeling him up, yeah, thumb stroking the ridge of his pec, sure, and hand sliding up to rub the flat of his skin, but he drops it so he can brace himself with both arms. That’s when Glen knows it’s about to get really good. That’s when T starts pounding him.

The small slick squelches of that cock in his ass turn to the heavy slap of their bodies colliding together as Titus hammers into him, cutting loose with all his strength behind him. When Glen opens his eyes T’s are shut and Glen loves that, seeing Titus when he’s flushed and horny for it. When he’s not driving straight into him he’s fucking him with the powerful roll of his hips, big hard collisions that wring groans out of Glen that aren’t real manly. He doesn’t give a fuck about that right now, has one hand up behind his head keeping Titus from driving him headfirst into the back of the couch and the other’s clutched up some covers.

Titus’ eyes flutter, he gets his bearings and suddenly his weight shifts back onto one elbow, arm snaking up to twist a fistful of Glen’s hair, jerk his head back. Glen curses but he’s getting reamed too hard to fight about it, the boneshaking force powered by those huge thighs. Titus tucks his head in beside Glen’s and for a minute it’s just T fucking through him, panting, all that muscle churning just to nail him with that cock, fast and slow — Glen’s got no say about that, didn’t ask for any.

The whole sofa bed’s making these shrieking noises underneath them, but it holds up.

“Fucking cum,” Glen grinds out, not because he wants it to be over but because he wants it in him. Titus twists his hair so hard Glen shouts, a couple more big pushes and he does with this moan that’s scorched into Glen’s brain. T keeps pushing but it’s all broken up, no force behind it, thrusts starting and stopping, a helpless pumping of his hips.

“God, Glenny,” Titus groans, right against him. His hand loosens up and his arm gives out and he’s just lying on him now, head dropped beside his, chest heaving, breathing loud in Glen’s ear.

At first, Glen’s too dazed to think anything about it besides he likes it body to body like this and, shit, that cock’s still stretching him and he’s loaded up with cum. T’s cum. Never imagined it could happen.

It takes him a second to realize Titus is gonna pass out.

He doesn’t really want him to move but he gives him a shove.

“Hey. Hey, T. You gotta get off me.”

The tired sound out of Titus doesn’t make him real confident he’s listening.

He gives him another shove.

“Come on, you’ve got a cock up my ass,” he gripes.

He can’t roll him off him like this.

Thank god the guy flexes over him enough to pull back and let it fall out of him, leaving a gape Glen can feel, even if all T does is heft himself back up and drop his drunk weight back on him.

Glen tests out a little thrust of his own hips. It’s not a normal guy lying dead on him, it’s somebody else pushing two meters tall, a lot of dead weight. He thinks _Fuck it_. He’s kind of taking advantage of the thing but he just got his ass rammed, so he bucks up against the guy and ruts it out against the flat of his abdomen, cum spooling out between their bodies as Glen groans. 

He settles down underneath him, a wave of fatigue swelling over him, too, but he’s not sleeping like this. He’s not any less strong than T, so it’s not a big deal to grapple him until he can push him over onto his back without straight dumping him.

Free to breathe, he grabs up the towel beside him and wipes the cum off himself.

Snorting as he looks at his friend totally comatose next to him with one leg hanging off the mattress he throws the damp rag on his stomach in case he wakes up enough to wanna do something about the mess. 

Messing with the covers until he separates the two blankets, he pitches one over T, then shifts out of the wet spot where the cum’s leaked out of his ass, leaving the idea of cleaning up for tomorrow morning. There’s already beer cans strewn around the place, some leaving sticky puddles. They’ve been living like animals. No joke. 

It’s hard to keep up with the place when Titus has half his stuff crammed in here and is always lying around wasted.

No big deal. The big deal is his whole body’s wrung out from T wrecking him. He’s happy to sleep on that.

\----

By the time they wake up, sunlight’s pouring through the sheet Glen tacked over the barred windows seeing as he never got around to buying curtains.

Glen rolls over to see Titus staring up at the ceiling, kind of blinking through things. He’s probably hungover as fuck.

T turns his head his way.

“I fuck you?”

Dumb question. Of course he fucked him. There’s no way he’s confused about that. But Glen’s brain catches up right before he points that out, that they don’t have a script for this.

“Yeah, well, you were trashed. You black out?”

Titus’ brow furrows deep.

“No. I remember.” He wets his cracked lips. “—I remember parts of it.”

Glen laughs.

“You got pretty fucking enthusiastic, lemmie tell ya. Woulda killed a girl.”

Titus sits with it a little while, valleys in his brow. 

Glen can see the trouble he’s having working out whatever he’s working on through the headache.

“Was that— I’m not— That’s kinda _gay_ , right?”

Glen lapses into silence, his own brow riddled up, looking away. It’s too weird hearing Titus ask so easy like that.

That argument comes back to him, now. The one over Bea. The one where Glen kept repeating giving Titus head didn’t mean T was ‘cheating’, that they were just screwing around, the one with Glen getting angrier and more desperate the more T said things like _Glen, it doesn’t feel right, okay?_ and _Don’t make this a big deal_ because he knew where it was going. He knew what they didn’t talk about. What passed under the bridge.

Then Titus had gone and done it, threw up his hands, voice raised, said _Listen, I don’t care that you’re gay!_ and that had set Glen off, shouting **I’m not a fucking faggot!**

He’d known, at that point. He’d been having sex with other men. Strangers passing through the harbor. He was getting good at it, recognizing what it meant when eye contact stuck too long, knowing where to show up to get ass. Blowing Titus didn’t get his dick any action.

Naming it, though? That’d never happened. For the three years since he first sucked Titus off it’d seemed like maybe it never would. 

When it did he got angry. Angry T put a name to it, furious at the rejection burning hot and shameful. He’d lost it. Wasn’t the first time, wouldn’t be the last, but might have been the worst. 

It was after that year Titus almost lost his leg and T wasn’t in the shape he used to be when he boxed. Glen throwing himself at him was no joke.

He thinks Titus must have said something, that something happened before Titus fought back, but Glen can’t remember. He can’t remember a lot of what happens when his temper blows. He only knows he wasn’t holding back, and Titus really started laying in.

He lost. He remembers that much. T dropped him. He may have even blacked out. He’s not clear on that part, just that he shouted at Titus for trying to help him, afterward, and they didn’t talk for a few weeks.

And now Titus can ask him, just like that, and Glen’s not even mad he’s gotta be the one to decide it, because it’s been four years and T’s the one person he doesn’t need to defend himself from. They worked that out.

He gives it some thought.

He focuses back on him, sure.

“You’re not gay, T. You don’t just _turn gay_ because you’re too drunk to know what ass you’re sticking it in.”

Titus doesn’t look that convinced.

“Yeah, but I blew my load.”

He nods toward the part of the bedsheets stained and looking crunchy with semen.

Glen rolls his eyes.

“Boss. Don’t be a fucking idiot. Nobody loves tits like you love tits. You know how I know? Because I listen to you talk about tits. And pussy. For hours”

Bea’s tits. Bea’s pussy. The sex he’s had with Bea. 

Glen and Bea didn’t even _like_ each other.

But even Glen knows it’d be a jackass move to point all that out.

Titus winces deeper, reaching up to push a hand up against his temple.

“Yeah. Alright... Shit, my head hurts.”

Glen snorts, enjoying looking at him, at his flexed arm and how the covers are half falling off him — all that tanned skin from time spent out on the ocean, rowing, or playing shirts and skins.

It’s crazy to jump from giving a guy head every once in awhile years back to letting that guy dick him, but he couldn’t ignore the need that kicked up in him, and Titus isn’t gonna go around telling anybody. He trusts him, completely.

“Still got water in the kitchen. You didn’t spill it all,” he says.

They’ve gotta get water from the pump outside, and boil it on the gas range or the potbelly stove, depending on the season, but only every couple days because they keep a few jugs full.

“Right,” Titus mutters. He doesn’t look ready to get up yet, still thinking. But maybe not about stupid shit, like that he could be gay. Titus hasn’t met a pussy he wouldn’t hit.

Glen’s gay. How many women did he try to fuck before he figured that out? And it didn’t work.

He hates it. Didn’t ask for it. That’s just how it is.

He wouldn’t _choose_ to wanna fuck his best friend more than anybody else, either, seeing it’s caused him a lot of misery. But he got to do it, and that was good. 

Better than good.

He thinks about what they used to have. That casual, semi-regular thing.

This time, he knows Titus’ll ditch him. Glen’s twenty-eight. He doesn’t have to be a dumbass about it. He can suck it up like a grown fucking man, right? Doesn’t mean he can’t get his, here in the shack where it’s nobody but them.

His stomach gets queasy, nerves on edge, but he doesn’t let it throw him. If it happens again, then he’s gonna go for it. That’s that.

That’s what he’s thinking when Titus says:

“It’s alright, though, right?”

Of course T’s on the same page. Of course. The guy zeros in on horny.

That queasy feeling just gets stronger, but it takes a weight off, too. All those violent, dark, scary fantasies that come from some place even worse than the anger might not get so much traction if T’s not just lying there down and vulnerable.

“You wanna be drunk around my place and get ass, it’s whatever,” he says. “Just don’t start goofing around. I’m not your bitch.”

That breaks Titus out of his hungover funk. He laughs.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll remember that. You remember you’re not gonna just find another _freak dick_.”

Glen snorts. 

It’s a normal morning after that, taking turns in the outdoor shower and trying to make the place look kinda decent before they wreck it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> candyriot: While further chapters of _Disco Zero_ already exist, due to medical events (not COVID, knock on wood) my writing has slowed and I'm starting to run out of the buffer zone I usually give myself, as well as the present chapters not being polished to my satisfaction. 
> 
> The fic isn't on hiatus, for me — I'm still busy writing it! — but there will be a posting pause until the beginning of Act III is written ahead and polished.


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